[SPEAKER_02]: M-S-S-W-M-D-A-S-S-S-W-M-D-A-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome to another edition of the Spy Talk podcast.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, again, we can fool off intelligence, oriental security, oriental news.
[SPEAKER_04]: There are cool rumors, whafting through the cafes of Moscow, according to multiple reports, and to that end.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to have Sean Whisklesser, a long time, Russia specialists at the CIA, as are guests today, to talk about that and his book,
[SPEAKER_04]: Tradecraft, tactics, and dirty tricks, Russian intelligence, and Putin's secret warmenine while.
[SPEAKER_04]: cash details back in the news was another report from the Atlantic saying he has branded bourbon that he's handing out.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think that president Trump's going to particularly like that new reporting.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know also that T and another evidence that D and I tells the cabinet is not part of the mix on the Iran war, you
[SPEAKER_04]: She was often Israel, last week touring a multinational operation center outside of Gaza.
[SPEAKER_04]: There was no report in the Israeli media that she met with the head of Mossad, the outgoing head of Mossad, or the incoming head of Mossad.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, can I just say on that like why would the Mossad bother to meet with Tulsi Gabbard in the midst of this war?
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, with Iran, I mean, she obviously has no input to it at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: She wasn't at the key meetings when the war was decided.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I assume they just figured it would be always the time.
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll just drop this in.
[SPEAKER_04]: A friend told me this week.
[SPEAKER_04]: that they had heard a top former intelligence official and the first Trump administration who I can identify would give away my source.
[SPEAKER_04]: Anyway, this former top intelligence official and the first Trump administration was saying to someone else that tells he gathered and cash but tell will soon be gone.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, for what it's worth, just that's not particularly novel.
[SPEAKER_04]: And one other thing we want to talk about this week, section 702 that surveillance law kicked down the road again, 45-day extension of it while Congress wrangles over renewing it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Karen, let's talk about that first.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let's talk about 702, which seems to be a story that goes on and on every week.
[SPEAKER_03]: This by-talk special.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, but what Senator Wyden has done is to say that there was an opinion issued by the Pfizer Court, the classified court that oversees Pfizer matters, foreign intelligence
[SPEAKER_01]: that were done by the FBI in terms of what it is using 702 surveillance and collection for.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was asking for this to be, to be made public.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I really do more request.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, it's a reasonable request, but it's, you know, for years, a number of top officials who have had access to seeing things from Pfizer about 702 have sounded the alarm.
[SPEAKER_01]: to say, look, if you knew what they were doing, you would not believe this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it is true that widen is in the spotlight on this now, the widen siren, and I think it's called, but it's been for years, I'm saying, look, you just need to know what's going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is the most public iteration of it we've seen in a while, and we'll see what happens.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, a number of a house and tell it is Jason Crowe also went on TV this past weekend.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, he did.
[SPEAKER_04]: There are a lot of abuses going on.
[SPEAKER_04]: People need to know about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Karen did one specify that it was FBI abuses that was a part of this FISA court ruling, because the letter that he said, he said a letter
[SPEAKER_03]: what it is was in this class of I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what he's targeting, whether it's NSA, which would, you know, make sense, whether it was something else.
[SPEAKER_03]: But he sends the letter to Radcliffe if it's about the same thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: He said the public needs to know about a secret court opinion
[SPEAKER_04]: with the Trump administration's use of data collected by the national security agents.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the NSA.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, well, that doesn't mean if it's collected by the NSA, just to riff on this, it's collected by the NSA.
[SPEAKER_01]: The question is, who's doing the queries that there is a subject of so much about the war, requirement, et cetera?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the idea that it would involve law enforcement and other others in the intelligence community, you know, is a logical.
[SPEAKER_03]: have all been briefed about this, and I haven't seen significant defections among intelligence committee members.
[SPEAKER_03]: Might have supported 702 extensions in the past, then now don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, we know what should we make of that?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and you know, you can't have a lot of confidence in the FBI's use of 702 under
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm on the present leader.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let me talk about cash potential problems.
[SPEAKER_04]: And what the FBI is doing in response, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ladies and gentlemen, which are reports on cash.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so here's the most troubling part of this week's news about cash, Patel.
[SPEAKER_03]: So last week or the week before, he sues the Atlantic.
[SPEAKER_03]: magazine and its reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick over their story that Patel has been drinking a lot has been in communacado at key times and concern that he was not in a state, a sober enough state to be.
[SPEAKER_04]: FBI director at least at certain times and this all was on all the earlier reporting about his misuse of the playing Flying is girlfriend around going to hockey games showing up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, but here's the here's to me the worst of it
[SPEAKER_03]: Patel files a lawsuit, civil suit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then this week, we learn that the FBI is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into the sources for the reporter, the Sarah Fitzpatrick.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, needless to say, none of what you reported involved classified information, which is the usual trigger for FBI's
[SPEAKER_03]: FBI investigations into journalist sources, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, so what it seems to be is he's using the FBI as his sort of, you know, to short for discovery purposes for his private lawsuit.
[SPEAKER_03]: that, you know, if he can get the FBI to identify the sources, he doesn't have to go through the extensive discovery process that a civil lawsuit does, it's hard to see what the potential crime here is if it doesn't involve classified information.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's also, did you see what's happened with her since this?
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's ramping up his activities, what she's has reported, Sarah Fitzpatrick has reported, is that all of a sudden she's being flooded with information from other people who want to tell her to broaden her story, to give her more information.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's sort of like a counter, okay, you want to investigate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, look what I, I just, I'm all of a sudden the recipient of a
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, we could see more firings of FBI agents suspected of leaking, but you know, by the tone of her stories, it sounds like she's got the cash potential can't trust anybody around him.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this reporting is pretty close to the book.
[SPEAKER_03]: And worth noting that the Washington Post reporter Hannah Natenson, whose home was rated by the FBI and it was devices were seized,
[SPEAKER_03]: This week won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting, so I think that's a nice report to what the FBI was up to.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, back to Total Gabbard for a moment, so she's in Israel, while the Iran war is raging and I wonder what the intelligence chiefs of both sides, Iran and America, are telling their leaders.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean Trump's position on Iran seems to change by the minute or the hour, and the same with the Iranians now.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you got to wonder what's going on at the top of the US to tell us at DNI.
[SPEAKER_04]: Gabbard is out of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't hear much from CIA.
[SPEAKER_04]: Anybody got a clue where US intelligence is on this war.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the US intelligence community is as clueless as everybody else about what's going.
[SPEAKER_03]: First of all, about what the state of play is in a ran at the moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, who's in charge?
[SPEAKER_03]: What role is it purely the IRGC, the hard liners, and yet the far minister is flying to Pakistan, and it will be flying to China.
[SPEAKER_03]: and engage with the Pakistanis on this supposed, you know, one page framework for a deal.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is fast moving, but I think, you know, as far as I can tell, nobody has a firm idea about
[SPEAKER_03]: whether the Iranians are going to play ball or not and let Trump get out of this crisis that he's Yeah, much less having a clear strategy of what we're doing.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's it's a big black box for everybody right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: Anyway Without let's get on to Sean Wiskwester.
[SPEAKER_04]: Wiskwester was not only a career officer
[SPEAKER_04]: In the CIA's client-descent service with expertise in Russian operations, he's long been a dedicated linguist with a BA in Russian language and literature from the University of North Carolina.
[SPEAKER_04]: He also holds the degree of strategic military studies from the Air War College, so I can't think of a better guest to have on today.
[SPEAKER_04]: The Chanda talk about the cool roar, sort of sweeping Moscow, and what's going on with Vladimir Putin.
[SPEAKER_04]: So without further
[SPEAKER_04]: Shung, wish bless you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome, despite talk.
[SPEAKER_04]: What a timely appearance.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not only to talk about your book, but lots going on in Moscow.
[SPEAKER_04]: We hear rumors of clues, fear of Ukrainian drone strikes, breaking up the, uh,
[SPEAKER_04]: victory parade in Moscow that there are very, very few officials in comparison to previous years are going to show up because of security concerns.
[SPEAKER_04]: We here, we've seen reports of a really bad mood nationally disachampment with Putin.
[SPEAKER_04]: What do you make of all this?
[SPEAKER_04]: And what do you make of these?
[SPEAKER_04]: who was all this kuchok and and where does yours especially the Russian intelligence service where what kind of role are they playing now and do they remain loyal to Vladimir Putin?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, first of all, Jeff, honored to be on with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to you in Mike for many, many years, Karen, and you as well, listen to you on the pod.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's an honor to be on Spitalk, and certainly appreciate all the work you do in the public service to provide focusing on important issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a few different things going on Jeff, and I think that some of the media reporting, I've seen some of the various journal and newspaper reporting, there is a bit of, I think, wishful thinking and undertone of wishful thinking and what's gone on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's cover what I think is the easiest thing first, which is the not having large military spray on with the Russians called the Vatava Mayar.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the in public victory day celebrations for war were to listen the Russians are well aware they cannot guarantee they're even their Moscow air defense sector anymore so this is this is this has been building for a couple of a few years now since the uh start of the invasion every year the larger and larger drone drone and one way attack you at UAV swarms on both sides are taking place so I think finally the Russians have the realization you know what
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't guarantee any equipment we put on on on on the victory day celebrations and what are they traditionally doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course Jeff back to Soviet times.
[SPEAKER_00]: They like to display some pre-mo equipment, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They like to bring missiles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, bring out some cool missiles bring out some some of the more modern tanks, you know T80 tank or T72 modified tanks or you know the newer versions of some of their BMP3s with modifications.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think the realization is you know, geez
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to look really bad on national and international TV if the Ukrainians decide to tackle legitimate military targets, military vehicles in red square, but I think that's what's that played there.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's even, I saw one report and it came out of Ukrainian sources, so.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, taking with a grain of salt, but there's fear that that Putin will even stage a so-called, and this is very, uh, uh, o-carot and conspiracy circles, a false flag attack, in other words, he will mount, uh, some kind of attack on the parade and blame it on the Ukrainians.
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, have you heard that and what do you think about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: there's a lot of there's a lot of rumors flying right now you know there's there's all sorts of talk there has been for months Jeff about you know is there a possibility of Putin being overthrown or the possibility of coups attempted coups What's gonna happen after the war I'm myself right at column for the safer brief
[SPEAKER_00]: a few months ago, I already wrote a column after Putin after the war when it looked like C. Sire was going to happen, you know, what's the succession scenarios look like?
[SPEAKER_00]: The bottom line, I believe Jeff is that the security servers are still informally in control of Russia.
[SPEAKER_00]: The FSB in particular, and its sister services, I think that any discussion of Putin being replaced, or any real discussion of coups,
[SPEAKER_00]: overthrowing him or popular dissent against him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's all fantasy for the most part.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think what you touched on as much more likely, which is that the security services themselves, Putin and his seal of E.K.
[SPEAKER_00]: and his is Oregon they've lost as they're called the organs of power.
[SPEAKER_00]: putting out miss of potential clues and subversion and what the Russians called the diversity, you know, diversion and society.
[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't that, of course, give the perfect pretext for an even harder crackdown on the Russian people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's a much more likely scenario what's happening right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: So they wouldn't need to actually stage your false flag just, uh, just amp up the rumors themselves.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, uh, to say, to, to justify even harder crackdown.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this is an old Soviet tactic, uh, you know, Jeff, this goes back to Stalin this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, look at, look, and, and, and, and Poon is a hardcore old-style checklist.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the term from the checkout, the original, you know, committee for the offensive of the Revolution after World War II that became the later NKVD in KGB.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, for 30 years, Stalin was, was an expert at this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Always talking about, hey, we got another wave of sabotage happening against, you know, myself and the leadership.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to protect you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to have to crack down and thank God for this security services.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is an old, old tactic of the check East and Putin's one of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I tend to believe that whatever temporary defections you see, people falling out of favor close to the leadership that happens in all these autocratic societies, there was a alleged affection that happened a couple weeks ago, a lower level, but still a, still a figure somewhere and I think deputy head of some type of tax ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, whether he actually defected or not, I think that the security services will play on all those sorts of things for an even firmer crackdown country like Russia four years at war now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jeff the FSB and the other security services have only tightened their control and their chill cold on the Russian people these past four years.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, Sean, I'm glad you brought up the checklist roots of Putin's crackdown because one of the things that really startled me, um, column the other day, uh, Vladimir Karamurza, uh, one of the premier, uh,
[SPEAKER_03]: Russia dissidents and opponents of Putin pointed out that Putin recently renamed the FSB Academy after Felix Dersinski the original head of the Czecha under Vladimir Lenin the
[SPEAKER_03]: notorious head of the architect of what was known as the red terror, which I think hundreds of thousands of people were executed.
[SPEAKER_03]: What did you make of that move of Putin at this Putin former KGB agent, of course, resurrected the ghost of Felix Dresinski and putting his name on a prominent
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it shows that gloves are off for the Russian security services.
[SPEAKER_00]: No more pretense.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going back to old style 100 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: What Lenin said to famous iron Felix Scherzinski.
[SPEAKER_00]: He can't have revolution without terror.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we have to terrorize the people in order to keep them in line.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Putin's always believed in that, but immediately after Yeltsin, we first came to power.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was concerned for his own well-being and his establishment of this new regime, the CLV key, the KGB veterans that surround him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now you see that in time of war, all pretenses are off, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: The FSB Academy now is again, the Georgian Skik Academy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, the FSB never moved out of the Lubyanka prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: The former prison, the former site of countless thousands of of Russians and other Soviet peoples killed in that building in prison tortured in the Lubyanka.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always been FSB headquarters, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So Iron Felix, the statue used to stand in front of the Lubyanka.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's going to stand, you know, also in front of the FSB Academy.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was taken down.
[SPEAKER_03]: Was it taken down under Putin?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was under yelts in the way back after the collapse of the Soviet Union and then the Russians knew, you know, Iron Felix was a sign of all the repression of Soviet times, you know, the NKVD, the KGB, those purges you talked about like that killed millions of their people, of course millions of people died in Stalin's purges carried out by a check on later that OGPUK and KVD KGB.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there was a rejection of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, the first chairman of the KGB under Yeltsin was a gentleman named Bacotten.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Bacotten, his vow was to drive a stake into the heart of the KGB to destroy the KGB forever, because he had suffered as a distant.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that didn't last very long.
[SPEAKER_00]: KGB and then the Czech east of your very resilient, then a few years, the FSB was on the rise again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Putin came to power, former director of the FSB himself,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, these are these are his guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are his attack dogs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always say the term portraying guard is too kind to tune too much of an honorific for the FSB.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are his attack dogs.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are ruthless thugs that killed the likes of journalists on a political sky and yams soft a politician killed Navalny.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think it's a sign of the times, Mike, you know, when they put the statue back up and they're saying to the FSB.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is our guy, Iron Felix.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the emblem of how we want to rule, terrorizing our people, just like he said, can't have revolution without terror.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in a time of war, remember, this is these, the old messages are bringing about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can't have counter revolution back then.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can't have any potential clues or sabotage or subversion from the West or anybody else to
[SPEAKER_00]: The great ZARV, Vladimir Putin.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a telling thing that they have iron Felix going back up, you know, with Georgian skick out of me now, if it's be a killer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So can I ask a question that's focused less on internal Russia than Russia in the world?
[SPEAKER_01]: And you mentioned the war, of course, which is that throughout your book, you highlight sort of ways in which all these different measures that you talked about, in which there are vulnerabilities
[SPEAKER_01]: right that there is a sense of incompetence, a deterioration of whatever kind of expertise there was in the past.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do you square this, you know, internal, you know, this internal hold that they have and sort of the incompetence that you describe, particularly when it comes to the rest of the world and the way in which they are trying to counter the United States and other, you know, countries.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Karen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a, yeah, appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're a student reader of the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've, of course, I know it a lot of their failures, you know, incompetence at times, you know, corruption, certainly corruption throughout my book, I've mentioned the many examples of corruption that Russian intelligence officers that I was privileged to work with that were, were trying Russia for the good of the West and for themselves to have a new life eventually in the West and defect defectors and others.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're not 10 feet tall.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're fallible.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have weaknesses.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've capitalized though on those in the past and we can't hear in the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: We always will.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, though, Karen, they're a formidable adversary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no accountability, remember, in the Russian system, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: The FSB GRU, the SVR, all three services.
[SPEAKER_00]: The FSB being the internal service.
[SPEAKER_00]: GRU being the military service.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now,
[SPEAKER_00]: For the past 25 years, this has been a hayday for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They get everything they want in need, all of the resources.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even when the war, the war, they largely prognosticated wrongly.
[SPEAKER_00]: They told Putin it would be a quick war.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would win it quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: The FSB had a huge role in the planning for the war as a point out in chapter 10 of my book.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's no accountability.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's never going to be a Ukraine commission in Russia.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all they get is more resources, more money to waste, for more corruption, but they're fiercely loyal for the most part of particularly FSB and all the services.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're fiercely loyal to Putin because they're completely beholden to him for all of their wealth.
[SPEAKER_00]: All that corruption, the lives that they lead, the leadership who send their sons and daughters largely abroad to study, those sea-livey-key and that inner circle.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they're beholden to Putin completely, all of their wealth, all their power, all of their influence of them and their families.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think there's both that play.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, Karen, a lot of weaknesses, a lot of corruption, a lot of incompetence at the same time, they can't go wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the state that's been at war for four years, those security services are only being strengthened, unfortunately.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have to be on guard.
[SPEAKER_01]: So does the United States appreciate this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do they?
[SPEAKER_01]: How does the United States separate from you?
[SPEAKER_01]: The United States assess the Russian intelligence and security services?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think that we understand it the way you do or do you think there's a need to understand it more broadly and not dismiss it, knowing about the corruption, the failures and number of levels that you point to?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's a very good question Karen gives me a chance that it'll also say my user, my own don't represent CIA or the US government.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will say and I stated in the book, for most of us, the vast majority of my career, you know, we had a good beat on the Russian government on its security services.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had them penetrated by the types of agents that I talk about in my book, CIA is a long history of that with the Russians and the Soviet services.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had a lot of success because our ideal or message resonates.
[SPEAKER_00]: American freedom democracy those Russian intelligence officers they want that for their children eventually so many of them defect and they come over to our side and that applies by the way that a Chinese is well we're talking about Russia today, but So yes, our message wins out in general.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that that we've prevailed for the most part against them, but I will also say this
[SPEAKER_00]: For the 30 some years of my career care and we weren't paying enough attention most of the time to Russia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why we were 20 years of war.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were engaged in a war.
[SPEAKER_00]: I deployed like any mother CIA that turns like myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: We deployed the war zones, you know, we had to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were anybody within CIA or the intelligence community agencies and time, if you were a manager, a senior officer, you better have served in the war zones and we all did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a service, you know, think about where was Russia.
[SPEAKER_00]: ranked in our unclassified national security priorities national security strategies for most of the past 25 30 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Barely top 10, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Barely top 10, even when they invaded Georgia, even when in 2014 they went into Donbass and Crimea.
[SPEAKER_00]: We still had the war on terror.
[SPEAKER_00]: We still had the Iraq war.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had proliferation and we rightly have China right at the list too.
[SPEAKER_00]: So unfortunately, I think that Putin for a vast majority of his reign in power, he's gotten a pass.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hasn't had enough focus and enough attention on his crimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: on his planning on his plotting and scheming like we see come to the fore now with Ukraine a full-scale invasion the largest since we're all too.
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, I have a question Sean about what we should be doing, but we have to step away for just a second.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, we're back.
[SPEAKER_04]: you are not only the author and expert on Russian security services as you mentioned in passing, you worked for the CIA for a long time on Russia in the operations division.
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you say what CIA should be doing or could be doing?
[SPEAKER_04]: Should we keep hands off?
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not talking about recruiting spies.
[SPEAKER_04]: That goes on continuously.
[SPEAKER_04]: But should we be taking active measures in Russia to help the deterioration?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a corner phrase.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I, you know, Jeff, it's a good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: I already said my views are mine alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been encouraged by some of the open campaigning CIA has been done both with Russia and China, open advertising commercials on the internet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a very smart idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, give us an example of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's a commercial CIA.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not the first one.
[SPEAKER_00]: They put out a recent one.
[SPEAKER_00]: They did one several years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're putting it out on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the latest ones shows a Russian intelligence officer, I think it is, saying, you know, contemplating the Ukraine war and the suffering and the disaster, you know, one million casualties and he sort of asked himself in Russians very well done.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, what's it all been about?
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, these are sort of like little soap operas that the CIA has been putting out, uh, you know, a dramatizing a Russian intelligence officer upset about Ukraine, etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right working with us and why not it's it's a it's a salient point salient message one that should appeal to many Russians right now You know Jeff one of the only places I see some freedom of press and Russia I comment on as I listen to the I listen and watch the Russian bloggers fear I do some Reading on their regular I'm a flown Russian speaker
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're often taken down very quickly, but you have these military veterans, you have intelligence veterans that get on their blogosphere, and they come in on some of the military disasters, whatever the latest disasters and happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you know there's discontent, you know there's some segments of society that are upset.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still believe the FSB has a tight chokehold on any possible descent.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we should take advantage of those willing to help us.
[SPEAKER_00]: willing to potentially build a new life for themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope some of them are listening to us right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a new life awaiting you in the West in the United States like you read about and can read about in my book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many have done that and have been rewarded for it and we value them and we value their expertise in the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm confident in my former agencies on top of that CIA, I'm confident in the intelligence community, it's on top of trying to capitalize on those very real opportunities right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I have a couple of questions about your, about events that occurred while you were at the CIA, but just to sort of,
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, put you in where you were at various times.
[SPEAKER_03]: Were you in Russia House?
[SPEAKER_03]: The CIA is sort of unit that dealt with all things.
[SPEAKER_03]: Russia.
[SPEAKER_00]: So CIA doesn't like me coming on any time periods or specific instances.
[SPEAKER_00]: But of course, in my book, I think I stayed on a number of occasions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, I worked in Russia House.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in Russian operations throughout my career, few times.
[SPEAKER_03]: But two questions, one goes back to 2015.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the White House, the Obama White House was having a international conference on terrorism, and they invited a delegation from Russia.
[SPEAKER_03]: Much to the White House's surprise, the guy who was,
[SPEAKER_03]: showed up to leave the Russian delegation was Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB, then, and now.
[SPEAKER_03]: And while he was here, he gets invited to the CIA for meeting with John Brennan.
[SPEAKER_03]: on the seventh floor in his office.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of your former colleagues, who I interviewed for my book, Russian, Relat, told me he was the translator for that meeting, but he was strongly opposed to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: That he said it was sending the wrong message.
[SPEAKER_03]: The European Union had actually sanctioned Portnacoff over the,
[SPEAKER_03]: over the annexation of Crimea, and he said, just having him there was a victory for Bortnikov and Putin itself.
[SPEAKER_03]: Were you, did you have visibility into that, and did you, and if so, did you share Steve Hall's concerns about Brennan meeting with Bortnikov on the
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I can't comment on what I was doing in 2015, so I wouldn't want me to comment on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will say this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would tend to agree with if that was Steve all your thanks, Steve all said that I would tend to agree with Steve at and giving giving that prestige, whether it's now then or at any point to a senior Russian official like Bordenacov to meet with a senior American official or our intelligence community.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back home, that's played as a win for them, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's played as a prestige win for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time though, Mike, as Steve and other senior CIOs,
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we call liaison or meetings between senior levels or intelligence services.
[SPEAKER_00]: That happens all the time with CIA and services around the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I think what's changed with Russia, of course, is, you know, the atrocities being committed in the Ukraine war and they started in 2014, of course, continue to even more so many thousands of times over in Ukraine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I think we have to give pause and we have to say, well, are we going to at what level are we going to continue to allow them to use?
[SPEAKER_00]: prestige interaction that that concerns things like, you know, uh, meetings and presidents, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were many that felt that the summit in Alaska doesn't give Putin a win just by appearing with our president or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm not a policy person.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not an expert to comment on those.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do know, I do know those at liaison happens all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to keep up the ability to talk with services.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also know for the most part with the Russians as my colleagues know,
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't take it seriously.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a zero-sum game.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't cooperate with CIA and FBI for the most part.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're considered enemy number one, the Galavni Plectivnik, the main adversary, the main enemy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I relate in the book, Mike is, you know, you read the book, you know, the Russians don't prioritize counterterrorism.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't prioritize counter proliferation working with liaison and international partnerships the way we do.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's our strength, our relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that I think they're quite cynical about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, one other question I have that overlapped with your tenure, 11 years later, 2016, Obama present on Obama orders the intelligence community assessment overseed by Brennan about Russia's interference in the, um,
[SPEAKER_03]: 2016 election.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, as you know, that has been continues to be a subject of controversy and there is supposedly this FBI Justice Department investigation into the intelligence community assessment that's ongoing as we speak into Brennan and others.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you have a role in the ICA?
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no comment on where I was then or whether I had a roll or not can't comment on that's yeah when want me to what I'll say it I said in the book on active measures Um, I believe the DNI report is factual I believe the SSCI report that that came out from the 2016 election that Marco Rubio was also a member of and he signed off on
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that there was Russian meddling social media trolls from the intelligence services that they did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that the goal was an attack on our democracy, fundamentally, an attack on our elections, so Americans don't trust the system.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that's much more of the overriding goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And aim of the Russian intelligence services not just with the United States, but they did the same thing with Brexit in the UK in 2016.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cite that in my book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cite the UK commission that reported on that and they're still doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see that in Hungary, they're constantly attacking elections.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't believe that was the overarching goal of their attack and what the Russians planned to do with the election.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe what their goal was, which was achieved to some degree, unfortunately, we're still talking about then as well in potential, then as well in voting machines being infiltrated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Former Attorney General Barr said that's bullshit.
[SPEAKER_00]: His words, excuse me, bullshit, didn't happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yet we have American still years and years later still talking about can't trust the election machines can't trust the states.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can trust our systems.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've worked.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have very responsible state election officials carrying it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in the interest of the Russian government and for Putin, for Americans to not trust free and fair elections that you can go to the voting machine and put your vote in.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what they believe in Russia.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's their cynical view.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what they want.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me just follow up with one point of that, you know, one source of the controversy is the claim by the current DNI tells the Gabbart and her people that the intelligence analysis was flawed and the assertion that the Russian meddling was done because Putin was trying to favor Donald Trump was thinly sourced and disputed by
[SPEAKER_03]: some high level CIA folks on that question of whether or not the ICA was accurate about its assertion that Putin decided he wanted to help Trump and that was the reason for the Russian meddling.
[SPEAKER_03]: You said something that suggested you may have some questions about that as well,
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'll say again, I've said this repeatedly on the record.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that the overarching goal of the election attacks was not for against any one individual candidate.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was against the system.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you're probably well aware, I'm like, if you go into the details of some of that DNI and other reports, there's parts of the reports that where the Russians believe that President Trump was going to lose.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's there's pieces of the reporting that state that very clearly that that was part of also the Russians, you know, calculations.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, we don't know who my one, there's all sorts of, you know, conjecture over what they, but I know fundamentally from working with them and what I detail in my book about active measures historically.
[SPEAKER_00]: is their attack is more fundamentally against our democracy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also believe that the continual infighting in our government at the most senior levels over what may, what some categorize as a hoax or not a hoax, I believe that only benefits our adversary.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe it's just, it's just
[SPEAKER_00]: creating ambiguity, disunion among their own population, which the Russians are applauding.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more of a win for them, more of a victory for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a reason why I try to stay very apolitical in terms of my stances on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I state what I know and what I know for the record and that's that they're attacking her democracy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll leave it at that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Going back to Russia today, there was a report in the Wall Street Journal who says the cafes of Moscow are a wash and cool rumors, and it's often said that people think a revolution is impossible until it happens.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nobody talks to Bolsheviks could overthrow the Tsar, but there it was.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nobody talks to so that union would collapse, but then it did.
[SPEAKER_04]: Would you be surprised if
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a cool attempt against the government and Putin in particular right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I would, I would be very surprised.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't mind going on the record.
[SPEAKER_00]: This one, I hope I'm wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: If two weeks from now or month from now, you'd be willing to have me back and there is some type of, I'd be thrilled to be wrong, Jeff.
[SPEAKER_00]: But listen, again.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, what was pre-go's in doing?
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's talk about Gregorji.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm writing a piece right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm opening it out and in some some some media somewhere another I've already written an article.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm clearing it with CIA right now about this issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the precaution mutiny was misunderstood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay We have to understand precaution.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe never fundamentally planned overthrow
[SPEAKER_00]: the Putin dire regime.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was pre-glojian shouting when he was marching towards Moscow?
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, he was saying, Shaigu, Girazimav, that's who he was shouting at.
[SPEAKER_00]: The minister of defense and the chief of the general staff, because his soldiers were dying at the front because they weren't in a ammunition.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did he manage to get on the road to Moscow?
[SPEAKER_00]: He went through a stall fallblast.
[SPEAKER_00]: I happen to study there as a student.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know the geography well.
[SPEAKER_00]: He went through a stall.
[SPEAKER_00]: He went through commanders that he had fought with in Ukraine.
[SPEAKER_00]: who absent orders from Moscow, because it happened very quickly, they're not going to kill fellow Russians.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Mike, if he had gotten to a Jeff, if he had gotten to Moscow and the ring road outside of Moscow, he would have came up against or asked for the units.
[SPEAKER_00]: Units numbering hundreds of thousands fiercely loyal to Putin.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd come against the FSB elite units of Alpha and Vimple, they needed to special operations teams.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd come up against the FSO, the protective service
[SPEAKER_00]: The precaution immunity had absolutely zero chance of ever succeeding in overthrowing Putin.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's misunderstood in the West.
[SPEAKER_00]: His call was really close.
[SPEAKER_00]: He got within a few hundred miles of Moscow.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't really get that close to overthrowing Putin at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did make a lot of headlines.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what a Putin do.
[SPEAKER_00]: from the textbook of auto-crats 101.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, everything is okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let me just talk to the captains involved with the mutiny, summon them to Moscow without put a glosion.
[SPEAKER_00]: FSB thugs lining the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you remember how that went down on TV, they all swore new oath to field to the master ruler.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put a glosion was told, you're gonna be okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a few months later, he and his lieutenant's die when they're playing false out of the sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: Poon's been at this a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been he's been getting straighties and the dictators 101 course for 25 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's way ahead of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's playing 3D chess.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't believe there's any chance of any any any type of a clue or uprising overthrowing him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the rumors probably serve him doing a crackdown even tighter crackdown with the Russian people.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yet, and yet, Catherine Belton, long time Russia Watcher has a front page piece in the Washington Post today, Thursday, highlighting this guy, Ilia Remeslow, who was a longtime Cremland propagandist, close to Putin, who then began criticizing the Ukraine War, gets thrown in a psychiatric hospital for a month,
[SPEAKER_03]: an old Soviet tactic to deal with the centers, but then has released and he's out there criticizing Putin left and right right now, and then Ukraine war.
[SPEAKER_03]: That seems to be a sign of an insider who is turning against the leader.
[SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't get too close to a window if I were him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm with Jeff on that one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, Mike, this fits a pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also the newsweek piece out this week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I don't, Mike had said editor's wrote a, don't know if you might have known who wrote it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was reading both pieces.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think, honestly, respectfully to misspelled and the other piece, the piece in Newsweek and the friend of mine wrote a piece for the Moscow Times, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, uh, I think it's a lot of, there's a lot of wishful thinking, and they're really so what might be happening with Remuslaw?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is what's put and done repeatedly?
[SPEAKER_00]: He throws somebody in jail, throws him in prison, and then he lets them go temporarily.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a sign of again, the ZAR, the AutoCrad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well,
[SPEAKER_00]: going to pardon this person temporarily let them go for a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Invariably, what ends up happening?
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't let you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they fall out of a window or they're arrested again and they're eventually killed, unfortunately.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: He let him evolve and go and evolve and he came back, roically, to say a roically came back.
[SPEAKER_00]: with a melee in prison, he was allowed to live in prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people say, why was he allowed to stay alive?
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's part of Putin like to likes playing the autocrat.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is, well, maybe I'm allowing temporary reprieve.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he kills him anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if I was remiss, low sadly, Jeff, like you said, I would be staying away from windows.
[SPEAKER_04]: I would say that with the big victory parade coming up we're all on pins and needles, it might be the most of what's victory parade in many years and I may be even putting himself as on pins and needles.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, one of the things that's underlying your book is that
[SPEAKER_01]: the readers, us, the United States, and more, doesn't quite understand what we need to understand about what the Russian intelligence services are and what they propose.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other thing that comes across is that you said here again, which is that Russia sees us as the number one entity in its headlights, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to know, do we see Russia as the number one entity in our headlights?
[SPEAKER_01]: And number two, do we, did you write your book to try to call attention to something that you think is the United States?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't mean the populace, I mean the intelligence services and the national security community writ large need to pay more attention to and just,
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you see that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Karen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love another final question about my book.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is why I wrote the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote the book to raise awareness.
[SPEAKER_00]: To expose the Russian services for the evil that they do in the world trying to thwart democracy around the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's written as you know 10 chapters on different aspects of their trade and their craft.
[SPEAKER_00]: as an exposer to say to us and our allies, you know, this is what they're up to.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what they've been doing for generations.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are a formal by the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're weakened by their corruption, they're weakened by incompetence at times, but they're focused with a singular focus on the United States as the Glovny product evening, as the main enemy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we need to be on guard, or we need to be more watchful.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think unfortunately, for many, many years, many administrations on the left, right, Dems and Republicans, we've been played for suckers.
[SPEAKER_00]: by Putin and by his regime.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's taken advantage of our wishful thinking that we could collaborate with them, work on the war on terror.
[SPEAKER_00]: Karen, I'll leave with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is you read the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that Russian intelligence officer who told me as a young CIA officer, he said, Billy, he is Ibuditi Nasigda.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, you are the main enemy.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were the main enemy, you are the main enemy, you always will be the main enemy of Russia.
[SPEAKER_00]: For us, the United States comes first.
[SPEAKER_00]: That should be a warning to Americans.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're always coming out of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're always their focus, even when we're distracted by other things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks again, Sean, for coming on at this very timely moment.
[SPEAKER_04]: I urge listeners to get a
[SPEAKER_04]: Russian intelligence and Putin's secret war.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks, thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was an honor.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, Sean.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's it for this week's Pytalk.
[SPEAKER_04]: Be sure to check out our complete podcast, our Kylan Apple, wherever you get your podcast.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you haven't already, do check out thespytalk.co new site on Substack, where we offer steady diet of scoops in the original analyses from the intersection of intelligence, foreign policy, and military operations.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just Google Spytalk.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're quickly finding your way there.
[SPEAKER_04]: This edition of the Spy Talk podcast was smoothly produced, as always, by can I, and expertly edited by Molly Hawkey for MSW Media.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_04]: See you around.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Jeff Stein.
[SPEAKER_04]: Am I going to go to the golf?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Karen Greenberg.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for listening.