Tangle - INTERVIEW: Counterterrorism expert and former FBI agent Clint Watts

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

On today's Tangle podcast, we sit down with Clint Watts, a counterterrorism expert who studies Russian misinformation and used to serve in the FBI. Watts has testified before Congress and is considering one of the leading experts on Russian misinformation. You can read the transcript of this conversation here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and I am COVID-19 positive. By now, most of you have probably heard this in the newsletter or the podcast, but I wanted to mention it. Obviously, I sound a bit congested and sick today on the microphone, and that is why the FBI. He's consulted the FBI Counterterrorism Division and has testified as an expert witness before Congress, most notably during a 2017 hearing on Russia's interference in the 2016 election. He is a senior fellow at the Center

for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University and a Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow. Clint, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. So I guess before we jump in, maybe it'd be good if you just told our audience a little bit about your work and what you do. And I'm always interested to hear how people like you sort of come into this line of work. Yeah. So I came to the internet because terrorists went to the internet. That's kind of how it worked. I mean, all bad actors over time who made their way to the internet. That was true of criminals in the 90s. And then if you look kind of across the board with extremists, they went there very quickly once they lost their homeland in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And so for me, terrorist use of the internet was kind of how I got into that space. And I was working at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point and kind of came back to work for the FBI again after I had been an agent for a brief period. And so during that, I ended up going to counterterrorism division and it was very clear everything was happening on the internet.

It was forums and then YouTube back then. By the early 2010s, we were Al-Shabaab on Twitter. Then it was Facebook and Twitter for al-Qaeda and ISIS, you know, at different times. And so in the midst of that, that's kind of how we came on to the Russians interfering in Syria and then later come to the U.S. election. to the U.S. election. So I had a mix of time, both in, you know, public sector working at the FBI headquarters there in 2000, gosh, it would have been 9, 10, 12, you know, in that period, but also working for the military and special operations command at times, and then working in the private sector for cybersecurity fusion centers and helping set those up. So we got to have a really unique blend, I feel like, of different opportunities. So Jack of all trades, master of none is kind

of how it worked in the digital space. Got it. So given that, I mean, I know about your work a little bit in part because an employee of yours is a friend of mine, which was an interesting connection to you. But I actually remember reading some headlines about you during your testimony in 2017, which, you know, caught a lot of attention because of the way you delivered it and how direct you were. And in my work, I know I write about politics. I write a daily politics newsletter. And one of the debates that comes up a lot in conversations with readers is about the impact Russia has had on the 2016 and the 2020 election. And I know that you have pretty strong feelings about this from your work. So I'd be curious, you know, in your opinion, if you could break down maybe what you find is the most compelling

evidence and proof that we have that Russia has, you know, quote unquote, meddled in the last two presidential elections that we've had? Sure. So 2016, at least we have the Mueller report, which the whole first half, you know, went into great detail about that. You know, everything from social media accounts, limited use of Facebook ads on the social media front, you know, trying to infiltrate audiences and push them for Trump and against Clinton. Yeah, that is, I feel like pretty beaten to death. I think the one thing that I would note from 2016, because you always get the naysayers and they'll point to like a single tweet and say, oh, this tweet's stupid. So what the

Russians did doesn't matter. Right. And you're like, well, did you see the other 100,000 they did that day? You know, and I like to remind people on the social media front that the Tennessee GOP account, 10 GOP was a Russian account. It had over a hundred thousand followers in 2015 and 16. Like the Tennessee GOP was like trying to get control of their own account. Like people didn't realize it was actually Russia. I think other things that are remarkable from that phase is, you know,

they orchestrated a pro-Trump rally at a cheesecake factory remotely from St. Petersburg, but did it in Florida. Like that's not easy to do, you know, pro and anti-Islam rallies in Texas. Like that's pretty impressive for just some people that are behind some computers, you know, in another country. I think the most important part of all of it though, which kind of gets lost is what Russia does that no one else does, right? So you see the social media tactics by 2020 adopted by nearly everyone, but what Russia did, which no one else really could do or would do, was hack the DNC, the campaign manager, the commander of NATO, Colin Powell, and dump their content in a very strategic way to shift the media landscape towards that position, both through WikiLeaks and a cutout

they created called DCLeaks, which was in the media almost nonstop, you know, in the final months of the election. And so that's a strategic shift in terms of it. Particularly the Access Hollywood tape, it gets lost in the discussion, but within 30 to 40 minutes, WikiLeaks started releasing emails of John Podesta. I mean, that's pretty impressive timing to sort of shift the landscape, right, and change the discussion as much as possible. So hacking to influence, you know, power influence operations, what Russia did. In 2020, they tried a lot of these things, but they knew they were meeting resistance. The US government did way better against foreign interference in 2020. The social media companies did much better, you know, at spotting it and

denying it. So they were less effective, but you still had, I think, the social media companies did much better at spotting it and denying it. So they were less effective, but you still had, I think, the most interesting cases. Andrei Dukach, who's essentially a Ukrainian individual who is known to have ties to the Russians, gets designated as a Russian agent by the Treasury Department, is appearing in videos with Rudy Giuliani. He's pushing what was known as the Nauvoo campaign. And so they still were trying. It just was not successful in the same way. So I think it's a good sign over all that things improved, you know, in five years that

we worked on this. I think it's also kind of a curious sign that they didn't even think about not doing it. You know, where some nation states would be, we're not going to do this anymore because it could be too many costs. They thought the Americans won't do anything. I'm curious. I mean, I know a lot of the conversation around the 2016 and the 2020 election came down to what Russia's intention was. And my perspective on it is that there seems to be sort of two competing camps, which is one that they were overtly and clearly trying to aid Donald Trump and hoping he won the election and another that they were just wanted to create chaos. I wonder what your read on that is

and why. Their first motive was just to not have Hillary Clinton. I mean, that messaging, you could see it in their messaging, you know, from their covert accounts and their overt trolling. They didn't want Hillary Clinton elected, number one. Number two, once Trump came along, they were over the moon for Trump. Number three was to sow chaos, but number sort of three, four are the same, which is to sustain a space in the US audience to advance their position on world events and foreign policy inside the American audience. And so that above everything is why Trump was so particularly valuable for them, is he says what they want said in America, and he says things louder than any other American.

said in America. And he says things louder than any other American. So that's the power of supporting someone like Trump, ingratiating him, elevating him, as he's saying things that the Russians want. He was concerning giving Crimea to Russia, basically. You know, his platform, when they were at the RNC, and Paul Manafort was there as campaign manager was don't give offensive weapons, restrict offensive weapons to the Ukraine in the battle with Russia. Man, Russia couldn't be happier to hear something like that in America. And that's a very non-traditional stance of either political party inside the United States. So long run, 2016 is one campaign in a larger program of subversion of the American democracy. And they sum it up best with went through the force of politics rather

than the politics of force, meaning go into another nation's politics, get ingrained in it, elevate people who are saying things that you once said, and help them be in charge such that when it comes time to negotiate or maybe not undertake military intervention, they're more likely to pick what you want to be the outcome. You know, it's interesting. I mean, when I talk about this in my newsletter, write about what happened in 2016 or 2020, I would say one of the top three most common responses I get from people is, well, the United States interferes in other countries' elections all the time, which, you know, I

think historically is there's truth to that. I know of at least one author who wrote a book sort of trying to analyze this and peg the number at 81 elections that the United States had meddled in between 1946 and 2000 compared to 36 by Russia or the Soviet Union. I wonder, you know, what do you say to that kind of response to this? I mean, is it different? Why is it different? You know, why is it okay when we do it, but not when they do it? You know, how do you hold those things in your mind? Yeah, I don't think I hold it as equivalent. You know, one aspect of it is time frame.

Right. So at least in the post church committee, you know, sort of era, I think when the CIA and the FBI sort of got held back and restrained more, when a lot of things got taken off the table, when Title 10, Title 50 authorities around, you know, what different organizations can do got pulled back. I think that's a massive change in terms of it. In terms of the broader set, what they oftentimes characterize is foreign interferences, us backing journalist programs in foreign countries or us backing political candidates who also have nonprofits, you know, in different countries. I think that's wildly different than voting, you know, hacking into voting systems and, you know, tinkering with the mechanics of how votes are counted or changing the roles of a voter system. I think that's wildly different than hacking the email accounts of a former secretary of state and dumping them strategically into the open, you know, to shape the media narratives.

I think it's a level of aggression that is not equivalent. I think it's also difficult to parse out because what the naysayers will oftentimes account as sort of like interference oftentimes gets very much tied up in democracy promotion, which is a lot of these countries which complain about Russia being one, but others as well, say, well, the US is meddling in our internal affairs. And that would be correct if we're doing democracy promotion. That could be said of all of the Arab Spring, by the way, you know, like every country that Libya, for example, we deployed air power. That was a, it could be seen as like we were trying to democratize Libya. Same with Egypt, if you remember. Syria, for sure.

I mean, that's been a 10-year battle. So I think there's ways that you can characterize it. I think the other thing that is very specific to this is the targeting of individuals inside of another country, both in terms of hacks but impersonations, taking over their actual accounts in social media, going in and impersonating on a wide scale, not in ones and twos, thousands, right? That is wildly different, I think, than what oftentimes gets labeled as equivalency. And the equivalency argument, what I love the most is the first ones to always make that claim is the Russians. And it's interesting who comes to their aid and to their side. You know, I guess related to that, I mean, one of the big sources of that right now that I see at

least, and I've noticed on social media among my friends and readers of mine and stuff is the proliferation of a lot of content that comes from Russia Today or Sputnik or other sort of Russian state-sponsored news outlets. What can you tell us about those outlets and how they function, what their relationship is to the Russian government, and how important are they at shaping public opinion today? Well, here's what the Russians have that the other nations don't that might want to interfere in the U.S. is they have Americans that work for them and their state-sponsored news outlets on scale that have a wide audience. And it's not illegal either. That's the other part that I think gets confused in the media discussion is they'll say, well, they're Russians.

And I'm like, well, no, they're Americans. Many many that you might know. It's a natural habit. I like to talk about RT's coverage. I've got to verify this. But of election 2016, the hosts that night were Larry King, Ed Schultz and Jesse Ventura. Right. So you get left wing liberals, older conservatives and the world's greatest conspiracy theorists all on the same show during election night. Right.

That's like triple whammy. So, yeah, part of the reason they do that is it's smart. They're looking for people with outsized audience in the American audience space that look like and talk like Americans. And so that's a very smart strategy. And that's why you see it in your own social media feeds. They are highly prolific at employing directly, and they're very good at picking what they call useful idiots, people who are ingratiated by money or fame that will come on and say whatever needs to be said to make people happy. And then also elevating what's called fellow travelers, which are people that think like and talk like the Kremlin. And oftentimes those are Russian immigrants in other countries who are legitimate citizens,

or those are individuals that really just don't like the United States, you know, to a large degree, but happen to be citizens. So they do an awesome pairing of penetrating the U.S.-Saudi space, and that's why you'll see it here in the U.S. Ironically, Russia would never allow the United States to do that or use that approach. They would be quite incensed. That's why they have, you know, any journalist's career is either that promoting the Kremlin or a long fall from a balcony when they say something the Kremlin doesn't like. I'm interested. I mean, one of the big news items, I guess, related know, I don't know really what to make of

Assange as a person or WikiLeaks as a whole as a journalist. I've certainly enjoyed scouring their website a lot over the last 10 years. I worry about some of the charges and what they mean for certain press freedom issues in the United States and the way they could be used, the precedent they set. But I'm interested, I mean, what your view on his relationship with WikiLeaks and, you know, other, I guess you'd say foreign adversaries, the United States is, and you know, what, what you feel about his extradition or what the charges against him should be, or, you know, how, how that whole, I guess, framework works right now?

Yeah, I mean, based on what the charges are, in my understanding, it's been a couple of years since I read through it, but he was instructing people to break into US government systems and telling them kind of what to go for and what to get. That's different from a journalist receiving the Pentagon Papers from someone who committed the overt act

of taking them out, delivering them to from someone who committed the overt act of taking them out, delivering them to a news agency for the purpose of publication, wildly different, you know, in my perspective. I look forward to the trial because I would, if the U.S. government has a case, I would like them to make it publicly. And this goes for lots of things the U.S. government does, which I get quite frustrated with. Another one was on warholarchy. I advocated, gosh, it's probably eight years ago, eight, nine years ago during the drone era, that if you're going to put somebody or designate them to be a target of a drone strike,

then you should be able to publish all the reasons for why you would do that. Right. Like just overtly say, this is why we're doing this to clear up any confusion about what their motives are, why you're going to such lengths, you know, to do it and to set up essentially what would be similar to a FISA court, but a releasable FISA court, meaning that once it is done as an overt act, then you need to explain why you decided to do that very clearly. over at ACT, then you need to explain why you decided to do that very clearly. And so same with Assange and WikiLeaks, you know, there's, it seems like it came down to a very specific time window where Assange made a decision that he wasn't going to just be an independent journalist entity, he was going to be one with the side that was going to pursue objectives. And those objectives, at least from my read, were the same objectives of Russia. And he was okay working with them. He was okay using their resources or appearing on their overt news

shows, which is no different than other journalists. But then when you combine that with the overt acts of deliberately telling someone, in this case, Chelsea Manning, you know, if I understand the charges correctly, I'd have to go back and review them. Then that's a crime, like any other journalist that does that should be prosecuted too. Is there a fine line? I don't think the line is that fine. I, you know, I would ask you as a journalist, would you ever instruct somebody to break into the CIA or the NSA and take documents, you know, or where does the culpability land? And I thought that it was just remarkable, the reality winners story. I don't know if you saw that on 60 Minutes

two weeks ago. They did an awesome, you know, evaluation. She took, she overtly took documents out. She gave them to the intercept. They were true. They did clear up things, even for people like me on the outside that didn't know. And she went to jail for, I think, like four years. It's pretty crazy. And no one is trumpeting her as some whistleblower hero. I don't know. It's weird to me how the mass market and the media sort of pick and choose who's a whistleblower and who's a hero and who's a villain and where that line is. And I don't think it's very clear. I don't think the media has a very honest discussion with itself about that either. Yeah. I mean, I would, I guess responding to two of those points, I mean, I would say with regards to Reality Winner, I mean, I do think there is a, at least a loud, very online group of people who sort of advocate for her in the same way that they advocated for Assange or Snowden. I absolutely agree that she has not gotten nearly the same

level of mainstream press that the other two have, I think probably because her, you know, what she did had a smaller impact. You know, I guess related to Assange, yes, you're right. I don't think I would ever, I mean, I would obviously never instruct somebody to hack a government computer, mostly because I don't know how to. But even if I did, I don't think I would do that because the risk of being punished is too high. And, you know, it's a crime, like you said. Then again, you know, I mean, what I sort of the point I made in the newsletter was, you know, even if you take that single charge out in, and I know you said it's been a while since you've read the charges, but you know, there are probably something like 170 years of prison time related to acts that I think are pretty standard procedure among investigative

journalists, like disseminating and collecting classified information. And I struggle with that moral question of, you know, is this a net good or bad for society? I mean, I think it's fair to say that what someone like Julian Assange did put a lot of innocent people in danger. And I feel particularly strongly about, you know, the sources on the ground in a place like Afghanistan, who were working with US diplomats to try and, you know, fight back against the Taliban who have their name plastered across the internet. I mean, that there's kind of inexcusable in that regard. But then, you know, as a US citizen, there are a lot of things that the US government was keeping from me as a voter that I'm glad I know because of Assange. And I don't know, it's hard for me to weigh those things sometimes, I think.

But how does that make any sense though? Let's just rewind the Assange story. How did the United States become the devil of the world while Russia or Saudi or China or any of these places, which in their initial mandate, they supposedly were setting out to fight, but never seemed to get around to it. And in fact, when they did, maybe a Russian agent showed up and said, you're going to shut your mouth and that's never going to happen. I mean, when talks about that in the journalist story, I'm just saying I find it ironic that we're OK going after democracies in that sense. But the bravery seems to stop whenever we think we might be hanging from a bridge or thrown off a balcony. And so in the journalist space, when I look at Assange, if he had stayed true, I would feel more for him if he had stayed true to what he said he

was setting out to do, which is if you're picking a cause and an issue, which is transparency, or as he used to say, right, conspiracy and transparency. What he was advancing was conspiracy masquerading as transparency. There were plenty of opportunities. And it is done right. Look at the Panama Papers. That was done exactly right. Someone made a decision.

They committed a crime. But they distributed it out to lots of journalists so they can make informed assessments based on their unique knowledge of the different countries they were in and the people they were studying. The tropes were way beyond what one individual can advance as a conspiracy about that case and tell the audience what to believe. So I think that's where it falls apart for me with Assange. He's not there helping Mexicans who are suppressed by drug lords. He's not in a lot of these countries. Glenn Greenwald, oh, so sad that he's worried about the United States while he's living

in that nice house down in Brazil, right? So that's where I run into it, where when I talk, and I don't mean to go on too long, but when I talk with journalists about this, I'm like, when are you all as journalists going to reconcile your own responsibility and dealing with your fellow journalists, which is, I'll steal from QAnon, right? Where we go one, we go all, which is like, if we're going to really attack these problems, there's a lot going on in China right now with Uyghurs. That's getting a little covered in the New York Times, but there ain't too many people diving into that, right? So that's where it kind of goes sour for me. Yeah. And I understand that. I mean,

it's hard because as a journalist, your response there, I guess, puts me in a position where I'm both trying to defend the media, which I don't want to do. I mean, I created an entire news outlet because I think the media is broken and the way that we talk about the news is broken. So in that sense, you're preaching to the choir. I agree with you 100%. I've also gotten criticism from readers for, you know, Red Scare or whatever, because I write frequently about the threat of Russia and the threat of China and my concerns about the rise of authoritarianism across the world. So for me, it's just about holding those two things at once. I mean, I think what you're saying can be true that the media and our American press is, you

know, more interested, especially on the left these days, seems a lot more interested in talking about how horrible the U.S. is than, you know, speaking to some of the other great powers of the world that I think, you know, objectively are committing, you know, more atrocities than our government. I think that's a fair statement. Just let me add, I don't think the US government should be left off the hook. I'm not saying that at all. There are lots of things I disagree with. I think journalists play a critical role, you know, in posing those challenges they and we need it we absolutely need it especially during the trump era which was bonkers right uh portland oregon things that were going on in these different towns george floyd protests absolutely so i just know

that i'm not saying that the media isn't needed or they need to watch out i'm just saying that in that context and if i could update it let's get rid of Assange in the discussion. Right now, I think there needs to be a discussion about the terminology whistleblower and who's a whistleblower and who's not. And who gets elevated into this sort of like, ivory tower status. And I bring this up because someone did it to me once. They go, well, you're a whistleblower about what was going on. was like no I'm not man like I was writing about that stuff publicly like I briefed the U.S. government that's why they had me testify like I'm not a whistleblower like by any means like I'm not like trying to expose correct I'm just trying to tell you like what I

work on so I feel like the terminology is getting a little weird there's great examples too of like whistleblowers have been forgotten right like we know about the phone calls that are pushed into a database that they shouldn't be with Russia. Right. Because of a whistleblower. I have no idea who that person is. went through the official process, took like a year and a half. We finally know who he is. And man, I don't hear a peep about that person, but other people, you know, it's weird how this sort of status and elevation of the individual comes out. And I know that's kind of like story crafting and things like that, but there's a weird degree of like how whistleblowers are gaming that system too. Right. Like there's, I think there's a super interesting like dissertation and journalism communications, like down the road of like, who is triumphant as the whistleblower on a horse and who kind of gets sullied under below and who goes between the two, which is kind of the Snowden-Assange, you know, part. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the primary reasons I

left the job that I left and started the newsletter that I started was because I see the way most news outlets today, even the most prominent and most respectable, in my opinion, are driven to have really high traffic and page views and motivated almost entirely by ad revenue that they get for ratings and those sorts of things. So they're required to craft those stories. They're required to make these binaries of good and evil that come out in a story like Assange's or Snowden's or whoever. But yeah, we could probably drone on about that for hours. I have another question for you related to your career here. And you sort of just referenced it about some of your-

Being a journalist, that I'm also a journalist because I had a blog. Yeah. Your testimony before Congress. I have been running this podcast and this newsletter for a while, and I've interviewed a lot of politicians. I think I could probably count on one hand, the number of people I've interviewed who have testified before Congress. And I am very curious your perception on, I mean, A, what that experience was like and B, do you feel like our legislators and lawmakers have a grasp of these kind of cybersecurity threats that we're talking about? Because I watch a hearing on Facebook or, you know, cybersecurity issues, and I'm seeing like 75 year old senators hold up their cell phones and ask how to log into Facebook

and stuff. And it scares the shit out of me, to be totally honest with you. And I'm very interested, you know, what, what your view is on where our government is in terms of their ability to handle and wrestle with a lot of this stuff that you work on? So I'm just going to aggravate and anger everybody. A few things. Testifying was not something I thought I would do a lot. I had done it once before that hearing. I ended up doing it, I think, four more times since at different committees. I had a great experience the day in March, what was it, 2017, you know, when I went, and that it was still very bipartisan. The senators that day all asked good questions. I had spoken with Republicans primarily about Russian disinformation before election 2016. And my interactions on Capitol Hill were very even up until that day. And it was weird.

I went from a pro drone war hawk under the Obama era to a show for Hillary Clinton during, you know, the Trump era. And so, yeah, it's been strange since then. And I've gotten a chance to go back a couple of times and there is some, there are some really good staffers that understand this stuff at a technical level, but it is not easy to do. Separately, there's not enough talked about, which is the revolving door on the Republican side is to into the defense industry, but the revolving door on the Democrat side is into the big tech info industry. And so there is cycles of things that play out in Congress, which define procurement and funding and define regulation and laws. That's why I laugh when they talk about breaking up big tech, because I'm like, is this

really the 12 senators on any committee that are really going to break up big tech and understand the implications of what they're doing? And the answer is no. It's not that in terms of age, I don't want to be an ageist, but their time has passed and they need to move on. And that's not just about tech. That's about climate's not just about tech. That's about climate. That's about tech. That's about a lot of issues in our country that are just not being addressed. Definitely about education and health. The system has drug on too long. And I don't think the founding fathers thought that we needed a large cohort of senators and congressmen in their 80s and 90s running the country. This was supposed to be a

second job during the founding. And so I think term limits are an absolute must because things like tech, honestly, in as much as I work in tech in, let's say, 12 to 16 years, I'm going to age out of it. There's no way I'm going to be able to understand the complexities of it. I was, I'm the last generation born without the internet, half of my life. We didn't have the internet. And so to think that I'm going to understand what web 3.0 is like in 16 years enough to really be able to navigate it, understand it, regulate it properly is, that's a farce. We actually need a younger generation to step up. I would say on the upside is there's, I love testifying to the Senate because there's less theater. That six-year term does make it to where they ask great questions. I feel like they're pretty

serious. I've had great off-hearing discussions with them. I've had follow-up that's been, it's felt productive. Nothing happens, but it's felt productive. And so I think that is great. And of all the senators I've met, there's only a couple that I am like, oof, that's not great. And that's both sides of the aisle. I think for the most part, they're generally good people. That's a great answer. I mean, it's insightful to, I think, think about it in that framework. For me, I definitely, I can be cynical about that stuff. And, you know, in terms of even term limits, that's an issue I've written about where I think that there's a really good case to be made either way on that argument. I mean, I definitely tend towards your side that we need it, but I've heard some compelling

points about kind of the downsides of losing that experience too. Another unique experience that you have is working for the FBI. I've actually had a few, I think two former CIA agents on the show before. You are the first FBI agent, former FBI agent I've ever spoken to. I'm interested. I mean, I've asked them these questions to the other guests I've had on what you think some people misunderstand about the major threats to the US and, you know, what you sort of saw behind the curtain that you think maybe would be illuminating for Americans who don't have that opportunity to hear about. Yeah, well, you know, I had three periods I worked at

the FBI. Only one is an agent. And that was a short time. I checked in in 2002 and I was out in 2003. Did not like it. Did not have a good experience. I thought I was going to go back to the army. I jumped off a boat trailer and tore my knee. I couldn't run for a year. So I pretty much ended that. And I went to grad school. I came back to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. And I ran into a guy who's been my mentor ever since in a meeting. And he didn't realize that I had been an FBI agent in his FBI just a couple years before. And he brought me back in. And it had been a short enough time that my clearances were still active. I could come back in. And I had a great experience, you know, that second time. And so worked in counterterrorism division there for a few years. Excellent experience, got to work on intelligence reform. And that was great. And I think when I left the Army to go to the FBI the first time, it was the FBI that was 2011, not 2001. You know, I thought that's where I was going to.

2011, not 2001. You know, I thought that's where I was going to. And then the next time when I went back, it was like a lot of change was changing, you know, and a lot changed while I was there. The last time I was in the building working was 2012 and had a great opportunity because that same individual to work on director Mueller's staff kind of as a, almost like an internal consultant there for that last year and work on lots of different projects that i felt very proud of and i was like wow the fbi and that decade had gone a long way under director muller for sure and it was more forward thinking and leaning forward and investigating cases proactively using kind of intelligence-led methodology finally getting things like

BlackBerrys and using the internet, you know, like a ton had changed in that 10 years. And it's improved dramatically. I think that's why you see these kinds of disruptions and responses around certain issues today, you know, like January 6th, you see them moving quickly, surging on things. The leaders at the FBI, there were good leaders when I joined in 2002. But looking at them in 2022, you know, going into next year, wow, they're so wildly different. You know, it's like watching the movie Heat versus watching, you know, like some of the cyber folks are incredible, you know, that are at the Bureau nowadays. And so, yeah, it's a major transformation for them. I think what people don't realize is how few FBI agents there are. So you'll, TV has created this myth that there's like an FBI agent at your fingertips every minute of the day. And their caseloads are massive. The work that they have to do is incredible.

Baseloads are massive. The work that they have to do is incredible. The legal process is 90 days at the shortest for anything, you know, oftentimes. And so the frustration you hear in the media is like, well, do you really know how the legal system works? Right. It's not a racehorse. It is a slow juggernaut, you know, that moves at a very deliberate speed. And that's why I always laughed at the Mueller investigation. Like, it's going to wrap up next week. And I'm like, I don't think this year probably, right? Like just knowing how hard it is to subpoena records and go through records and do due diligence and work with the attorneys. And it's a tough process. And there's a reason that a lot of FBI agents are former attorneys or accountants. It's because it is a dedicated data-driven process, ultimately,

to build bodies of evidence. It is not jumping out of helicopters and a lot of the things that the television would convince you. What's your read on Bob Mueller as a leader, as a person? I'm interested. Yeah. So interestingly enough, like I was always the guy to rose back on the wall, you know, in the meetings, but I thought he was

great. Like he took people forget. He started at the FBI the day, I think the day before nine 11, I think that Monday was his first day and Tuesday was nine 11. It was, uh, uh, an FBI that didn't have computers. They were basically just coming out of typewriters. You know, like an FBI office in 2002 would only have a couple of Internet connections, you know, for 50 agents, 50, 60 agents. You had to wait your turn. Still using copy machines. There was no digital archives. By the time he left, that had changed. He had brought it into the next century. And so I think that alone, his focus on that was incredible. I think in terms of counterterrorism and the way he shifted the Bureau, counterterrorism was considered a backwater. You know, as of 9-11, that 180 quickly and he made that shift.

So I thought that was great. I think the way they worked with the interagency was incredible during that time. And I think that was a lot due to his leadership. He was a good attorney. He was tenacious. He also had a military experience as youth. And so he was there at the right time to change directions. I think that's why President Obama asked him to stay long in a position that's already 10 years long.

And so, yeah, I think he did as good as anyone could have done. And we're lucky to have him there, you know, at that time. That transition to a terrorism focus is actually an excellent segue to my last couple of questions. And we'll let you go. I know your time's fairly limited. First, I guess we'll start with the foreign space and I'll ask you the same question about domestic terrorism, but I'm interested what you view as the greatest foreign terrorism threat to the United States right now, or maybe just the greatest foreign threat to the United States right now and why? Yeah, foreign threat is interesting. Well, foreign threat is China, I think, in terms of just cyber espionage and hacking in general.

It's pretty pervasive and people just really it's hard to get your head around the scale of China as a foreign threat. I also don't like playing the China boogeyman too much because it's it's inherent in a lot of American racism. It's inherent in a lot of American racism. Part of the reason that one party beats up on China more than Russia is because one country's got white people and the other one doesn't, in my honest opinion. I see that when I talk to people, they'll be like, oh, we got to get China, though. I'm like, well, the Russians just interfered in the election. Like, oh, China probably works. And you're like, no, not on the elections. There's lots of other things that we're worried about.

I think in general, Russia's destabilization of the U.S., it's not all they're doing, but the way they were able to strategically pivot to get us as a nation to say, we might not defend Ukraine, or maybe we should leave NATO. Maybe it's okay to work with Russians, you know, in different spaces. They hate us, you know, like as a country, they want to destroy us. And they've done a really good job of using white nationalism, Christian identity, you know, these sorts of levers to really ingratiate themselves in parts of America to where you have Americans cheering for Vladimir Putin over Joe Biden. That is a remarkable success by Russia, who doesn't have a very strong hand.

Right. So I guess that's... I skipped over jihadists. That's probably where you're wondering. No, no. I mean, I don't want you to go anywhere. I'm interested what comes to mind. I mean, I'd certainly be curious about your views on the state of Islamic extremism today. I don't want you to go anywhere. I'm interested what comes to mind. I mean, I'd certainly be curious about your views on the state of Islamic extremism today. I don't know more than you do to say what's what. We'll have another Islamic extremist attack in the US at some point. They have more time than we have defenses. You know what? I do have another thing that doesn't get talked about, which is foreign private sector firms. You've what? I do have another thing that doesn't get talked about, which is foreign private sector firms. You're seeing this with the NSO group today and some

of the discussion around Apple computers and their software and Google saying, look, this is a huge vulnerability. Man, the power is in the private sector overseas. Russia and China is nation states. But if you look at the private sector actors that are out there, the technology they're developing and the money they have, they are a force to be reckoned with, particularly in the US in terms of their economic financial connections. So private military companies, cyber firms, dark PR firms, black intelligence firms, firms, dark PR firms, black intelligence firms, that stuff, that keeps me up at night, actually. So I guess the counter to that is what you view as the greatest domestic threat to the United States right now. I mean, I certainly know, or at least as of last year, where FBI Director

Chris Wray stood on that, but I'd be curious what your view was. Yeah, I thought he did a great job in his briefing. Angry, young, white guys with AR-15s at their house. That's my number one concern for the country. There's a lot of them. They move to violence more quickly. Their reasons for doing it are oftentimes not entirely clear.

They're hitting people can cannot defend themselves and in parts of the country that you know it's tough to police and there's other political problems and then I think that the ties to that and the provocations around election integrity are my other big thing I think threats to election workers is my number one fear in the U.S. homeland right now. It's way more pervasive than it gets talked about because it happens at a local level. Most of it isn't seen or acknowledged. And then I think the last thing I would add is a lot of these folks that are trying to deny 2020's outcome are running for local election positions. And I would expect that in 2022,

we have them overtly overthrow an election result and nominate the loser as a winner. I think that's my big thing for 2022. I'd be curious just to poke at this a little bit more. I mean, in terms of angry white men with AR-15s being a top domestic threat, I mean, you're an ex-army guy, an ex-FBI agent. I imagine your views on something like gun control are probably to the right of a lot of people in the Democratic Party. And that assumption could be wrong. Please correct me if it is. But I'm curious, I mean, how do you resolve an issue like that aside from gun control? I mean, what do you think?

What do you think is the way to address that? Yeah, I don't think Americans need assault rifles. This is silly. I think it's ridiculous that I had to carry around a weapon with no ammo for weeks when I started in the army 30 years ago because I wasn't trained to be safe with it. We can just give any teenager one and tell them to go run into a riot, start shooting people. That's ridiculous. So weapons are part of the problem because that there's two parts to it. Right. There's the people and the motives and why they're doing it.

And then there's the severity. The severity is about weapons. Right. So if you wanted to reduce severity, that's about gun control. You know, that's about how do we keep track of people who have weapons that are mass killing devices? I can't understand where the boundary is around who and when they get a weapon. Like we can do tons in that space. Why no training classes? that space. Why no training classes? I mean, if you want a car, you have to have training,

certification, and insurance. Weapon, nothing, right? Like it doesn't make any sense. So I think there's a lot we can do in there to keep the Second Amendment in place, but also be reasonable about what's happening to our country. And like, we just don't want to go in this trajectory. happening to our country and like we just don't want to go in this trajectory separately it's about this identity of white anger towards all races and women misogyny is a big part of it as well um that it's hard for me to get my head around even when i observe it or or read it and write about it it doesn't make sense it doesn't even add add up. And so there's something that needs to be addressed in this country around just digital disaffection with the world. It is a problem. And that is a much larger psychological societal problem that I don't think the US government would ever be able to grapple with. It manifests in its worst form as white supremacy,

but there's other versions of it as well. Clint Watts, thank you so much for the time. I appreciate it. If people want to find your work or keep track of you, where's the best place to do it? Yeah. If you want to yell at me, I'm on Twitter at Ed Selectivism. That's what Twitter's for. So you can honestly scream at me there. If you like reading and you're one of the last people like reading, we do have a sub stack called Selected Wisdom. I think it's clevwatts.substack.com. And that's where we write a lot of the sort of pieces that are there. Awesome. We'll drop some links for those in the episode description and the newsletter. Clint Watts, thank you so much for the time, man. It was super interesting to have you on

and hopefully we'll get to do it again sometime soon. Thanks for having me. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. Bye.