WEBVTT 00:00.571 --> 00:11.076 [SPEAKER_00]: M-S-S-W-M-D-A-S-S-W-M-D-A-S-S-W-M-D-A-S-S-W-M-D-A-S-S-W-M-D-A-S-S-W-M-D-A-S-S-W-M-D-S-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-S-W 00:25.515 --> 00:52.202 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, hell's a poppin in our corner of the National Security sphere, beginning with President Trump's startling appointment of Bill Pulti, a man with zero intelligence experience to be the acting director of national intelligence and, if that weren't enough, the hiring of the convicted 24-year-old January six rioter, Elias Rizari, to oppose in the defense department special 00:55.323 --> 01:00.767 [SPEAKER_03]: There's also news about Trump National Security Advisor, John Bolton, we'll get back to that and more. 01:00.807 --> 01:08.993 [SPEAKER_03]: And the second, but I also want to mention here that our special guest later in the show is Michael Lewis, a former terrorist and prosecutor, Guantanamo. 01:09.033 --> 01:11.935 [SPEAKER_03]: He's got a new book out about one of those cases. 01:12.035 --> 01:19.360 [SPEAKER_03]: It's called Second Wave, Inside Al Qaeda's post 9-11 attack plan, an America secret effort to stop it. 01:19.660 --> 01:21.282 [SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, now where do we start? 01:21.482 --> 01:22.823 [SPEAKER_03]: Bill Poltri, I suggest. 01:22.843 --> 01:23.143 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 01:23.523 --> 01:34.229 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, among the, I gotta say, you know, in a, uh, with a White House that, you know, does jaw dropping things every day. 01:34.250 --> 01:40.013 [SPEAKER_04]: This stands out as like, you know, jaw removal time. 01:40.073 --> 01:43.215 [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's just, I mean, among other things. 01:43.555 --> 01:52.286 [SPEAKER_04]: First of all, the guy is keeping his other jobs as head of the federal housing mortgage agency. 01:52.586 --> 02:02.438 [SPEAKER_04]: So it says a lot about how important they consider the DNI job when it's clearly just going to be part time because this guy has all his two other jobs in the 02:02.738 --> 02:03.438 [SPEAKER_04]: How was it? 02:03.458 --> 02:06.600 [SPEAKER_01]: They did it with Marco Rubio and they still considered his job. 02:06.620 --> 02:09.721 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying it's not the first time. 02:09.981 --> 02:13.423 [SPEAKER_04]: But the main thing is, what is Polty known for? 02:13.803 --> 02:23.007 [SPEAKER_04]: He's a Trump attack dog who was first put in the justice department in charge of weaponization effort. 02:23.668 --> 02:27.750 [SPEAKER_04]: That which has led to that which led ultimately to the slush fund. 02:28.550 --> 02:31.234 [SPEAKER_04]: prosecutions of Komi and others. 02:32.295 --> 02:43.950 [SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, when he said when he was at the Justice Department, one of the really alarming things he said was, well, you know, we'll try to bring cases and if we can, we will. 02:44.190 --> 02:46.633 [SPEAKER_04]: But if not, we're going to name them and shame. 02:47.781 --> 02:59.164 [SPEAKER_04]: that's what he viewed his job as a justice department official is, you know, uncovering stuff to name and shame Trump's political enemies. 02:59.604 --> 03:03.005 [SPEAKER_04]: So he really couldn't do that at the justice department. 03:03.886 --> 03:07.087 [SPEAKER_04]: And he finally got sort of moved into these housing agencies. 03:07.427 --> 03:07.587 [SPEAKER_04]: But 03:08.367 --> 03:10.249 [SPEAKER_04]: Think of what he could do at DNI. 03:10.290 --> 03:14.515 [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, Tulsi Gabbard kind of like, you know, set the precedent. 03:14.535 --> 03:19.140 [SPEAKER_04]: We're releasing all these files and then spinning them as showing some sort of 03:25.067 --> 03:26.668 [SPEAKER_04]: This is what Pulti's gonna do. 03:26.888 --> 03:36.893 [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this is his main interest in life and needless to say, he has zero experience in actually dealing with classified intelligence. 03:37.173 --> 03:39.354 [SPEAKER_04]: It's not even clear he has a security clearance. 03:39.414 --> 03:51.179 [SPEAKER_01]: So like, you're assuming it's absolutely terrible, but in another way, you know, and you sort of send this at the beginning of your remarks is that what is the Trump administration 03:55.041 --> 04:04.426 [SPEAKER_01]: What extent are they willing to give it anything so it may be that he's there to do whatever Trump's bidding is, but in terms of actually doing the job, which he doesn't know, right? 04:04.506 --> 04:07.288 [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't come from any of the agencies it represents. 04:07.828 --> 04:12.971 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it really builds ill for the future of this office when when the dust settles. 04:13.675 --> 04:28.683 [SPEAKER_03]: And what worries some people considering his track record of, you know, being part of Trump's vengeance campaign is that he will now have complete clearances to see anything he wants in US intelligence. 04:28.723 --> 04:30.925 [SPEAKER_03]: He can go deep into the vaults. 04:31.585 --> 04:43.452 [SPEAKER_03]: If Trump and especially if Trump tells him to do that, the look for stuff on the Russian investigations and so on anything that might be that Trump is the transactional guy. 04:43.933 --> 04:55.720 [SPEAKER_03]: And if he asks Pulti to go deep into the files and find something that you might find useful to bargain with Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, I don't think Pulti needs to be asked. 04:56.040 --> 05:10.392 [SPEAKER_04]: He knows what to do, but there is one really consequential product of all this, which is that Senator Warner, Mark Warner Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, 05:15.616 --> 05:17.898 [SPEAKER_04]: exiled from D&I. 05:18.558 --> 05:25.803 [SPEAKER_04]: He's not going to support a renewal of 702 FISA authorities that Karen something. 05:25.823 --> 05:26.843 [SPEAKER_04]: And this is what it took. 05:27.264 --> 05:28.885 [SPEAKER_01]: And this is what it took. 05:28.905 --> 05:42.393 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we were all asking ourselves, what would it take to actually address 702 the way we need to address it, to make sure it is not misused to make sure that maybe it's curtailed from get the whole 702 that I'm always writing about. 05:42.793 --> 05:43.694 [SPEAKER_01]: And this is what it took. 05:45.415 --> 05:50.257 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, well, let's see if Warner has the votes for that, but I mean, well, it's not just Warner. 05:50.577 --> 05:54.539 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there are a lot of Republicans that pretty upset about this appointment too. 05:54.579 --> 06:00.361 [SPEAKER_03]: And right, so I mean, I have no, he's never even, he's never even been a private in the army. 06:00.421 --> 06:05.464 [SPEAKER_03]: He has zero national security experience, zero intelligence experience. 06:05.584 --> 06:05.744 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 06:05.784 --> 06:08.745 [SPEAKER_03]: He's there to, I would maintain. 06:08.805 --> 06:10.886 [SPEAKER_03]: He's there to dig up more dirt. 06:11.932 --> 06:16.915 [SPEAKER_03]: that he might find in the intelligence files on Trump's perceived enemies. 06:16.935 --> 06:34.786 [SPEAKER_03]: So anyway, I don't know if there's anything more to say about the appointment of this January 6th rioter to oppose, I suppose, the very little level, opposed to a DOD special operations and low intensity conflict offensive with boy to talk about the campaign to rehabilitate January 6th guys. 06:34.866 --> 06:36.367 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they're back in the government. 06:37.307 --> 06:39.972 [SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, as I said, not much more to say about that. 06:40.393 --> 06:42.556 [SPEAKER_03]: John Bolton back in the news. 06:42.657 --> 06:43.258 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 06:43.358 --> 06:44.400 [SPEAKER_03]: Tell us about that Mike. 06:44.908 --> 07:12.650 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, he is reporting today, and this is Thursday to fourth, he has agreed to plead guilty to one count of retaining classified information, which apparently he is alleged to have shared with his wife and his daughter, family members, but not who apparently didn't have. 07:13.093 --> 07:14.134 [SPEAKER_04]: security clearance. 07:14.214 --> 07:15.494 [SPEAKER_04]: So that's the crime there. 07:15.574 --> 07:19.736 [SPEAKER_04]: He was sharing and it wasn't actually the documents themselves. 07:20.056 --> 07:36.404 [SPEAKER_04]: It was his notes and he was emailing his wife and his daughter about, you know, what he learned from this class of material that he was going to use in some way for his the book he was writing. 07:36.644 --> 07:38.845 [SPEAKER_04]: Now he's not charged with including it in 07:39.505 --> 07:50.497 [SPEAKER_04]: his book, because apparently he had to get some kind of clearance for that, but it's the sharing with the wife and daughter that's at the heart. 07:50.517 --> 07:53.240 [SPEAKER_03]: Stupid question, is this a selective prosecution? 07:53.992 --> 08:01.039 [SPEAKER_04]: Well, it's worth remembering that this is an investigation that began under the Biden Merrick Garland Justice Department. 08:01.159 --> 08:07.926 [SPEAKER_04]: So they thought there was potential criminality there, you know, he had, you know, 08:09.948 --> 08:20.933 [SPEAKER_04]: But a top-flight lawyer, one of the most prominent in Washington, Abby Lowell, as his council, who doesn't plead guilty a whole, you know, doesn't plead his clients guilty a whole lot. 08:21.113 --> 08:27.195 [SPEAKER_04]: So one has to assume that, you know, when they did the analysis, that they didn't have a good defense for this. 08:27.455 --> 08:34.899 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, from 18 charges to one, and the judge hasn't, you know, ruled on the plea deal yet, 08:38.626 --> 08:39.326 [SPEAKER_04]: June 26th. 08:39.586 --> 08:40.566 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. 08:40.586 --> 08:46.128 [SPEAKER_04]: So he's a way, but I mean, look, he's also agreed to pay a $2 million fine. 08:46.828 --> 08:54.150 [SPEAKER_04]: So that's a pretty hefty penalty right there, whether he gets additional prison time. 08:54.170 --> 08:54.950 [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know. 08:55.410 --> 08:56.550 [SPEAKER_04]: Will. 08:56.650 --> 09:02.852 [SPEAKER_03]: I imagine the ripple effect across official Washington, you know, how do you go with the office today, honey? 09:03.552 --> 09:03.832 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. 09:04.032 --> 09:05.633 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I can't talk about it. 09:06.214 --> 09:06.554 [SPEAKER_03]: Right. 09:06.814 --> 09:06.994 [SPEAKER_03]: Right. 09:07.315 --> 09:07.475 [SPEAKER_04]: Right. 09:07.695 --> 09:20.263 [SPEAKER_04]: But look, it's also worth remembering that this prosecution is bought after we had two successive presidents, both of them retained classified information and both of whom shared it. 09:20.903 --> 09:27.225 [SPEAKER_04]: with others in the case of Biden, his speech writer Trump stuck him into Mara Logo. 09:27.525 --> 09:35.387 [SPEAKER_04]: And yes, and Trump said it's at Mara Logo and he's alleged to have shared like held up one of them to Susie Wilde. 09:35.547 --> 09:37.167 [SPEAKER_04]: You could find something about it. 09:37.207 --> 09:42.829 [SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, in that sense, one could say selective prosecution. 09:43.922 --> 09:45.704 [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, well let's get on to our guests today. 09:45.764 --> 09:58.578 [SPEAKER_03]: Michael Lee with he is one of the few American work-rime prosecutors who also has experienced capturing terrorists as part of an elite army unit out in the global war on terrorism for almost nine years. 09:58.618 --> 10:04.404 [SPEAKER_03]: He serves as a prosecutor in the Gitmo Bay military commissions, not just that. 10:04.965 --> 10:25.085 [SPEAKER_03]: He was the only prosecutor to appear in a courtroom for the free major contested cases there, the 9-11, it's acts USS Cole case and a case against Al Qaeda's top commander in Afghanistan until recently he was a senior attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice National Security Division. 10:26.275 --> 10:30.360 [SPEAKER_03]: So, he's interesting, is a very interesting inside look. 10:30.500 --> 10:41.994 [SPEAKER_03]: I have a lot of questions about the way these cases were handled and the case he accounts in the book, second wave, inside al Qaeda's post 9-11 attack plan and America's secret effort to stop it. 10:42.034 --> 10:43.516 [SPEAKER_03]: So, let's go talk tonight. 10:50.605 --> 10:52.866 [SPEAKER_03]: Michael Lee with welcome to Spide Talk. 10:53.426 --> 11:09.032 [SPEAKER_03]: Your book, Second Wave, is an autopsy of sort on the investigations and prosecutions of sci-fi full-up opera, Chuck, and his son, Uzair, who were suspected of helping al-Qaeda operatives to smuggle, explosives, potentially a dirty bomb. 11:09.552 --> 11:10.293 [SPEAKER_03]: into the US. 11:10.333 --> 11:16.541 [SPEAKER_03]: You tell the story like a true crime procedure, kind of a law and order special terrorism victims cases. 11:17.001 --> 11:21.286 [SPEAKER_03]: But unlike the TV show, there was no clear resolution to these cases. 11:21.727 --> 11:25.551 [SPEAKER_03]: Saifulaparachia was one of the 71 individuals at Gitmo. 11:26.252 --> 11:30.775 [SPEAKER_03]: deemed too innocent to charge but too dangerous to release. 11:31.315 --> 11:36.659 [SPEAKER_03]: He was held without charges for over 16 years, but you make a case that he was guilty. 11:36.759 --> 11:39.701 [SPEAKER_03]: Tell us about him and the pursuit of him. 11:40.505 --> 11:41.626 [SPEAKER_02]: And thank you for having me. 11:42.287 --> 11:48.134 [SPEAKER_02]: So Sifeliparasha is a fascinating character and individual. 11:48.974 --> 11:54.120 [SPEAKER_02]: He was this gregarious, well-liked, moderate guy. 11:54.140 --> 11:57.204 [SPEAKER_02]: It was a lawful permanent resident of the United States. 11:57.244 --> 11:59.666 [SPEAKER_02]: He had an Orthodox Jewish business partner. 12:00.727 --> 12:08.070 [SPEAKER_02]: He had an import export business based in New York and Pakistan and just ever use a life of the party everybody liked him. 12:08.090 --> 12:16.073 [SPEAKER_02]: He never Expound any Radical views or anything like that He was a businessman and a very prominent businessman 12:16.769 --> 12:20.071 [SPEAKER_02]: He was a businessman that had, you know, he worked his way from nothing. 12:20.752 --> 12:29.018 [SPEAKER_02]: One of the FBI agents I interviewed called him a force of nature that what he did from coming from nothing to living the American dream was, was amazing. 12:29.798 --> 12:32.921 [SPEAKER_02]: And awe-inspiring, really, you know, loving family. 12:33.721 --> 12:38.104 [SPEAKER_02]: but so he kind of overextended himself around 2000. 12:38.164 --> 12:42.348 [SPEAKER_02]: He got involved a little overextended in a real estate deal. 12:42.368 --> 12:52.175 [SPEAKER_02]: He was kind of trying to get these, you know, luxury, Pakistani, seaside condos going and he kind of spent all his liquid funds. 12:52.876 --> 12:58.340 [SPEAKER_02]: So at the same time in 2000, he goes to Afghanistan, gets an audience with a summer bin Laden. 12:58.820 --> 13:02.722 [SPEAKER_02]: and has been lad in his business card six months later in the spring of 2001. 13:02.782 --> 13:07.084 [SPEAKER_02]: So a few months before 9-11, college shake Mohammed shows up at his office. 13:08.024 --> 13:09.325 [SPEAKER_02]: And he's the architect of 9-11. 13:09.645 --> 13:15.747 [SPEAKER_02]: And then we kind of have this Odyssey where he's working with KSM, it's called Check Mohammed is known. 13:16.187 --> 13:19.129 [SPEAKER_02]: KSM sends eventually after 9-11 sends his nephew. 13:19.149 --> 13:21.170 [SPEAKER_02]: I'll leave Abdul Aziz Ali to work with 13:22.690 --> 13:26.772 [SPEAKER_02]: And Ali is also a 9-11 lotter conspirator. 13:27.452 --> 13:29.133 [SPEAKER_02]: And then you start to find other things. 13:29.173 --> 13:32.174 [SPEAKER_02]: There's other big name Al-Qaeda operatives. 13:32.194 --> 13:35.416 [SPEAKER_02]: And they got him Abu Zabata, Ramsey Ben Al-Shib. 13:35.876 --> 13:43.019 [SPEAKER_02]: And when they were rated after 9-11 in safe houses, they found like business cards from Parachat emails. 13:43.399 --> 13:45.040 [SPEAKER_02]: All indicating this plots. 13:45.760 --> 14:02.029 [SPEAKER_02]: that Hirachia was helping KSM and the al Qaeda to essentially how to navigate global maritime shipping because our port system was kind of insecure and vulnerable because airline safety, of course, was heightened after 9-11. 14:02.709 --> 14:05.711 [SPEAKER_02]: So the idea was that they were grooming 14:13.540 --> 14:14.340 [SPEAKER_02]: supporting that. 14:14.921 --> 14:19.963 [SPEAKER_02]: Then you get to like the things of torture that of course are not reliable. 14:20.483 --> 14:32.768 [SPEAKER_02]: But then you have what really said law enforcement in the CIA off was when Coluchick Mohammed was captured and he said, hey, I know this guy and he says he knows how to obtain nuclear weapons. 14:33.780 --> 14:45.827 [SPEAKER_02]: And then, of course, it turns out that Parachia was directly connected to Pakistani nuclear proliferators and intelligence people and terrorist sympathizers. 14:45.867 --> 14:49.470 [SPEAKER_02]: Because remember, 1998, Pakistan became a nuclear power. 14:50.390 --> 14:52.652 [SPEAKER_03]: So it's an interesting coincidence. 14:54.241 --> 15:01.406 [SPEAKER_03]: of his connections in your book, and I think that he explains himself pretty well. 15:01.846 --> 15:04.468 [SPEAKER_03]: Remember, Osala bin Laden was a very prominent guy. 15:04.508 --> 15:07.630 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, he's virtually slowly royalty. 15:08.130 --> 15:10.252 [SPEAKER_03]: Very tight connections to the kingdom. 15:11.052 --> 15:16.477 [SPEAKER_03]: uh... thought he used construction business and he was backed by the u.s. to c.a. 15:16.897 --> 15:18.519 [SPEAKER_03]: during the war against the Soviets. 15:19.099 --> 15:31.270 [SPEAKER_03]: and he was quite a he was almost a celebrity at that point and so it wasn't all that unusual that uh... sci-fi might have sought him out or been interested in meeting this guy right 15:32.755 --> 15:44.605 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, and in fact, you know, based on, again, I write the book very, you know, objectively, I was used to be a journalist before I was a lawyer and, you know, I try to say his case very clearly. 15:44.645 --> 15:49.469 [SPEAKER_02]: And I do believe that Parachas initial meeting with bin Laden was completely innocuous. 15:49.509 --> 15:51.731 [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was not based on terrorism. 15:51.751 --> 15:53.312 [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was Parachia. 15:53.693 --> 15:56.195 [SPEAKER_02]: He was addicted to contacts. 15:56.595 --> 15:57.416 [SPEAKER_02]: Remember his upbringing. 15:57.456 --> 15:58.276 [SPEAKER_02]: He came from nothing. 15:58.737 --> 16:03.981 [SPEAKER_02]: He had a Casio electronic organizer that was full of the brim of just context. 16:04.101 --> 16:06.063 [SPEAKER_02]: Anyone of influence he would put in there. 16:06.623 --> 16:09.145 [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, I think it was just his normal M.O. 16:09.165 --> 16:11.087 [SPEAKER_02]: to meet Bin Laden. 16:11.627 --> 16:12.508 [SPEAKER_02]: I think he was excited about. 16:12.528 --> 16:14.410 [SPEAKER_02]: I think he was honored to meet some Bin Laden. 16:14.850 --> 16:16.912 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it was an innocence exchange. 16:17.552 --> 16:18.253 [SPEAKER_02]: But that's where the story 16:19.774 --> 16:21.595 [SPEAKER_03]: after 9-11, not so innocent. 16:22.415 --> 16:42.382 [SPEAKER_04]: One of the fascinating things in your book, which I didn't know, even though I covered all these matters quite intensively at the time, is just how seriously the CIA was taking his case to the point where they wanted to name him an enemy combatant, from an 16:47.411 --> 16:51.532 [SPEAKER_04]: enhanced interrogation techniques was there euphemism for it. 16:53.353 --> 17:07.536 [SPEAKER_04]: And it was all based on the idea that he was important to a second wave of attacks that involves smuggling a dirty bomb or nuclear weapon into the United States. 17:07.576 --> 17:12.317 [SPEAKER_04]: Now you said before that this comes up at KSM, 17:15.844 --> 17:22.669 [SPEAKER_04]: brought this up, I was zooming in his own interrogations, and that's where the basis for this came. 17:23.089 --> 17:30.495 [SPEAKER_04]: Of course, KSM was being waterboarded 183 times, raising questions about how 17:31.683 --> 17:48.908 [SPEAKER_04]: much credibility one could give what he had to say, but to talk to us about what the what the exact basis for the belief that there was there might be a nuclear component to this second wave of attacks and why the CIA was so worked up over it. 17:49.825 --> 17:51.346 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that is a great question. 17:51.466 --> 18:00.048 [SPEAKER_02]: So they, the CIA and FBI really didn't, they knew a little bit, they didn't really know much about Saifila Parachia, you know, after 9-11. 18:00.088 --> 18:04.150 [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't until 2003, when Majid Khan was captured. 18:04.630 --> 18:09.732 [SPEAKER_02]: The Majid Khan was one of KSM's protégés that he was kind of destined to be, 18:10.632 --> 18:21.956 [SPEAKER_02]: a sleeper agent because he was a refugee that lived in Baltimore, he graduated from high school in Baltimore, but much he kind with also, there were a lot of red flags with him that we'd find out later in the book. 18:21.976 --> 18:26.297 [SPEAKER_02]: He was kind of one of those, you know, like, I mean, you know, I've spent 21 years in the army. 18:26.697 --> 18:28.318 [SPEAKER_02]: There's always a dirt bag everywhere you go. 18:28.338 --> 18:29.658 [SPEAKER_02]: I'll kind of have their own dirt bags. 18:30.118 --> 18:44.086 [SPEAKER_02]: I think Maji Khan was kind of destined to be one of the al-Qaeda dirt bags, so he wasn't the smartest guy there, but when he was captured, Maji Khan kind of said, oh, yeah, there's his father-in-son duo, say Fulhu and Uzair Parachia. 18:44.587 --> 18:52.832 [SPEAKER_02]: And then CIA was like, all right, we don't know about these guys, but then when College Sheikh Mohammed was captured, they asked, you know, they kind of asked about that. 18:53.272 --> 18:56.034 [SPEAKER_02]: I think he was the 15th Waterboard or something like that, 18:56.894 --> 19:13.217 [SPEAKER_02]: KSM was like, oh yeah, you know, this is he mentioned this guy, Parachya that was helping us with nuclear weapons and he knows how to obtain it and then so that's kind of the genesis of the immediate oh my god moments and that's when everything spun up. 19:14.278 --> 19:29.586 [SPEAKER_02]: That was what they went through their files and that's when they looked at raids that occurred in Pakistan in 2002 and that's when Proaches name started popping up again and all of a sudden this name was just kind of popping up all over the place 19:42.593 --> 19:45.695 [SPEAKER_02]: the lead hijack before he couldn't get a visa in the rate of his house. 19:45.715 --> 19:47.476 [SPEAKER_02]: There was information linking to Parachia. 19:47.816 --> 19:50.198 [SPEAKER_02]: I bruise a beta is kind of like an al-Qaeda archeterist. 19:50.618 --> 19:51.419 [SPEAKER_02]: They found it there. 19:51.539 --> 19:59.364 [SPEAKER_02]: So all these confluences came to you and then I started looking at Parachas background and they realized he's not you're one of the militarists. 19:59.384 --> 20:04.968 [SPEAKER_02]: He is a rich, powerful, connected guy that they couldn't just go and capture. 20:05.868 --> 20:33.767 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think, and then they realized that he had, and this is the key to all this, is that he had an import export business in New York, as then they started connecting the dots, and then, you know, and realizing that waterboarding might not be the most reliable, and totally get that, but when they start connecting the dots with other things, and then the port system in New York, I think, whether it was justified or not, the CIA was completely spun up and they got the FBI involved and it was, 20:34.647 --> 20:37.108 [SPEAKER_02]: a secret manhunt of the ages. 20:37.168 --> 20:39.869 [SPEAKER_02]: It was probably one of the most important ones to them at that time. 20:40.289 --> 20:53.755 [SPEAKER_02]: And as you mentioned, they CIA wanted to torture him and they actually got a memo that said that declared, say, for La Paracha, to be declared an enemy combatant before he was captured. 20:54.215 --> 20:57.957 [SPEAKER_02]: And that was a very unique situation, particularly in the lawful permanent residence. 20:58.986 --> 21:07.332 [SPEAKER_04]: So you were a, we should have pointed out that you were a Guantanamo prosecutor and you were assigned to his case. 21:07.592 --> 21:10.234 [SPEAKER_04]: I assume after he's rendered to 21:22.976 --> 21:28.162 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, and in fact, I write about the whole one tonimo process pertaining to Proccia and my book. 21:28.822 --> 21:33.107 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think I referred to me as one of the military prosecutors in the book. 21:33.747 --> 21:34.849 [SPEAKER_02]: But yes, absolutely. 21:35.669 --> 21:38.933 [SPEAKER_02]: I read every shred of evidence relating to Parachia. 21:39.233 --> 21:40.715 [SPEAKER_02]: And I also was a prosecutor on the 911 case. 21:42.096 --> 21:52.242 [SPEAKER_02]: and as I was working on the 911 case, you still see when you're working on discovery and information like that, Parochas name was just kind of always on the fringes of that case. 21:52.362 --> 22:03.608 [SPEAKER_02]: So, but yes, I have a whole chapter talking about the efforts to prosecute, say for the Parochet and Military Commission, one of the chief prosecutors, 22:04.448 --> 22:06.489 [SPEAKER_02]: name was Captain John Murphy, a Navy captain. 22:06.909 --> 22:12.370 [SPEAKER_02]: He actually agreed with me and he he bumped Parachat to the top of the list of cases to be prosecuted. 22:12.970 --> 22:20.252 [SPEAKER_02]: But then John Murphy guy, I would say, let go to put it nicely on your right. 22:20.893 --> 22:21.633 [SPEAKER_02]: He got fired. 22:23.493 --> 22:25.154 [SPEAKER_02]: And they brought in General Mark Martens. 22:25.654 --> 22:29.395 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think I have a little chapter named after the chapters called Who Did He Kill? 22:29.935 --> 22:36.357 [SPEAKER_02]: Because Mark Martens said that unless the person directly killed someone, he was not going to prosecute some random case. 22:36.397 --> 22:41.738 [SPEAKER_02]: He did not want to prosecute Parachia because he was the oldest by far detainee at Guantanamo Bay. 22:42.238 --> 22:43.979 [SPEAKER_02]: How did you feel about that at the time? 22:46.059 --> 22:48.040 [SPEAKER_02]: I got viewed it as more of a problem. 22:48.873 --> 22:53.402 [SPEAKER_02]: I still can't more of a principal decision, and I believe General Martin's was viewing it more as an optics. 22:54.207 --> 23:19.829 [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not saying he was right at wrong because Guantanamo Bay and the military commissions obviously had and continued to have horrible optics and I think he was his heart was in the right place, but I think if you're talking from taking a principle stand and I mentioned this in the book, I told General Martin's that, you know, I think that Parachat should be held accountable for his crimes or what I believe to be his crimes before he dies a martyr at Guantanamo Bay. 23:19.849 --> 23:21.370 [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't think that would help anybody. 23:22.828 --> 23:29.449 [SPEAKER_03]: I have to say from reading your book that you don't say this is what I inferred. 23:29.889 --> 23:35.710 [SPEAKER_03]: It was kind of a hysteria rampant at that point and understandable to a certain point. 23:35.770 --> 23:37.151 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we've been attacked. 23:37.791 --> 23:47.252 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, the main interest of the intelligence agency was, like you say, fear of a second wave that could even be greater. 23:47.832 --> 23:49.153 [SPEAKER_03]: So I understand that. 23:51.755 --> 23:52.636 [SPEAKER_03]: lack of a better word. 23:52.676 --> 23:56.359 [SPEAKER_03]: hysteria, great, you know, fear, rippling through the agencies. 23:56.639 --> 24:02.484 [SPEAKER_03]: They seem to be a jumping from point to point on this nuclear weapons issue. 24:02.884 --> 24:05.206 [SPEAKER_03]: And the string was never drawn to it. 24:05.766 --> 24:07.368 [SPEAKER_03]: And from what we know now, 24:08.768 --> 24:14.370 [SPEAKER_03]: Al Qaeda's interest in nuclear weapons was really aspirational all along. 24:14.410 --> 24:18.852 [SPEAKER_03]: They never obtained a weapon or the making of a weapon. 24:18.872 --> 24:23.694 [SPEAKER_03]: They never never really got anything off the ground on that case. 24:24.956 --> 24:38.184 [SPEAKER_02]: Judge, if you're correct, in the book talks about how it was a very aspirational thing, I think Ben Laden called it, you know, his Hiroshima moment to try to sort of get that second way that catastrophic attack. 24:38.824 --> 24:50.011 [SPEAKER_02]: And the book kind of meanders along with talks about different efforts that Al Qaeda did to try to obtain nuclear weapons, most of them were through Pakistan because, you know, there was a lot of proliferation going on. 24:51.272 --> 25:00.398 [SPEAKER_02]: But I think the issue with Parachia, and that's why I find it fascinating, with the hysteria, was that Parachia was connected to the father of Pakistan's nuclear program. 25:01.799 --> 25:07.464 [SPEAKER_02]: This was an individual that was in his Casio organizer that he contained his contact information. 25:08.544 --> 25:13.388 [SPEAKER_02]: So he was connected to that person, which definitely raised the hysteria level up even more. 25:13.408 --> 25:15.610 [SPEAKER_02]: And then I think what didn't help. 25:16.310 --> 25:24.521 [SPEAKER_02]: the process was, I go, the book goes into the, it takes you into the room of some of those interrogations with the FBI when he's finally captured. 25:25.122 --> 25:30.590 [SPEAKER_03]: Excellent, excellent work on that side, Mike, we really were in the room in these interrogations. 25:31.542 --> 25:52.637 [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you and the thing and what the interrogation right up does is it kind of shows you how the FBI other than any waterboard that the CIA could do to anybody else the FBI agent doing complete lawful normal traditional FBI interrogation methods over the course of weeks broke him down and he was in tough enough to crack. 25:53.577 --> 26:17.943 [SPEAKER_02]: and the agent got him to finally admit that he did talk to KSM's nephew about smuggling explosives to Europe and, you know, Prochio even admitted that that was he was pretty sure there were talking about chemicals, but then he finally got him to break down and Prochio was in the FBI agent to this day is convinced that he was going to 26:18.983 --> 26:26.567 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, spill his soul to them and tell them the truth and he was about to do it and I don't want to give it away, but then something happens. 26:27.128 --> 26:36.233 [SPEAKER_02]: So unexpected that I will say that the FBI agent to this day said that it was one of the most shocking moments of her long and very long and can't leave it at that. 26:36.333 --> 26:38.914 [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, my God, spell out what happened. 26:39.535 --> 26:40.015 [SPEAKER_02]: All right. 26:40.055 --> 26:42.396 [SPEAKER_02]: So you know, Michael, you're you sold me. 26:42.556 --> 26:45.318 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm so so you're easy to crack. 26:46.576 --> 26:48.498 [SPEAKER_02]: I am, I am not a tough net to crack. 26:48.518 --> 26:50.239 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like perrochoice. 26:50.340 --> 26:55.664 [SPEAKER_02]: So we have, for the book talks about not just perrocho, but we talk about what's going on in the world. 26:56.185 --> 26:57.966 [SPEAKER_02]: And I also talk about the people involved. 26:58.807 --> 27:01.370 [SPEAKER_02]: And there was kind of an ancillary character to this story. 27:01.810 --> 27:02.911 [SPEAKER_02]: I call her agent Ruby. 27:02.931 --> 27:03.912 [SPEAKER_02]: That's not her real name. 27:04.532 --> 27:06.674 [SPEAKER_02]: She was an up and coming military. 27:07.655 --> 27:28.114 [SPEAKER_02]: um, investigator and military intelligence interrogator because the military had just set up this organization, the acronym was Stittiff, come this is Joint Task Force, they were supposed to kind of gather intelligence and they didn't really work on the big CIA cases but all of a sudden a big fish comes to biogram in the military zone and agent really wanted to be a part of it. 27:28.754 --> 27:46.809 [SPEAKER_02]: And she lobbied and lobbied and lobbied, she was relentless, everybody had talked to said that she was a, she was a force of nature and she was relentless and they finally said, okay, you can be in the room during the interrogations of sexual approach along with Janelle Miller and FBI agents and a CIA agent that we call Bob. 27:47.957 --> 27:50.639 [SPEAKER_02]: And then the FBI agent was clearly the lead. 27:50.839 --> 27:54.141 [SPEAKER_02]: And she told Agent Ruby that, okay, you can be in the room, but you're gonna take notes. 27:54.821 --> 27:56.142 [SPEAKER_02]: In Agent Ruby did not like that. 27:56.663 --> 28:04.127 [SPEAKER_02]: And over weeks and weeks and weeks of interrogations, Agent Ruby can get more and more kind of agitated. 28:04.768 --> 28:09.851 [SPEAKER_02]: And she just, she really felt that she would be the one to crack this case. 28:09.951 --> 28:10.931 [SPEAKER_02]: This was her calling. 28:11.292 --> 28:12.592 [SPEAKER_03]: And she really did it in a way. 28:14.613 --> 28:36.565 [SPEAKER_02]: broke the case she cracked it right off the rails state did not become famous but she did become infamous this is one of those untold stories of the war on terror where in certain circles i mean bob will never forget this i interviewed him um agent Miller will never forget this it became notorious in the military circles um there's a little blowback about 28:37.288 --> 28:43.592 [SPEAKER_02]: getting the, um, you know, the agency is more on the same page with the military because of what Agent Ruby did. 28:43.672 --> 28:49.716 [SPEAKER_02]: So, Agent Miller, the FBI agent got him to crack and he was rocking back and forth. 28:49.756 --> 28:50.497 [SPEAKER_02]: He was sweating. 28:51.197 --> 29:00.263 [SPEAKER_02]: Brought you was rubbing his eyes and you can tell the spell, you know, he was, he was, he was broken and everybody in the room, at least Bob and Agent Miller 29:04.526 --> 29:10.868 [SPEAKER_02]: And just as he was about to say it, his mouth started moving, all of the sudden, you're here, we need to take a break. 29:11.748 --> 29:16.510 [SPEAKER_03]: I need to take a B because it really has a tradition. 29:17.830 --> 29:27.033 [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it's interesting this book because you you try to make the whole book sort of like if you got the chance to be in front of a jury. 29:27.533 --> 29:29.134 [SPEAKER_01]: This is the story you would tell. 29:29.154 --> 29:31.094 [SPEAKER_01]: This is the story you would lay out. 29:31.394 --> 29:32.515 [SPEAKER_01]: That's how I see it. 29:33.415 --> 29:54.975 [SPEAKER_01]: And his son, who I hope we get to at some point in the podcast, does go to, who is ancillary in many ways to this case, as you tell the story, does, you know, is tried in federal court, is convicted, eventually his 30-year sentence and his conviction is overturned, and eventually he goes home with that. 29:55.115 --> 29:56.016 [SPEAKER_01]: That's another story. 29:56.516 --> 30:11.162 [SPEAKER_01]: But my real question to you is, had you been able, given the fact that the FBI was involved in this, had you been able, is your thought that had you been able to present this case the way you presented here in federal court that you would have gotten a conviction. 30:12.022 --> 30:14.263 [SPEAKER_02]: So in federal court, I am. 30:15.310 --> 30:22.755 [SPEAKER_02]: I am positive that we would have gotten a conviction in federal court for a material support for terrorist group. 30:23.035 --> 30:30.700 [SPEAKER_02]: And the reason for that is because, look at the facts, he gave some of it a lot of his business card in 2000. 30:30.860 --> 30:32.381 [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, maybe you get a pass, right? 30:33.541 --> 30:37.844 [SPEAKER_02]: But then college check my homage shows up before 9-11, okay, maybe you get a pass. 30:38.524 --> 30:40.125 [SPEAKER_02]: But then a lot of stuff starts happening. 30:44.877 --> 30:49.181 [SPEAKER_02]: He's holding like $500,000 in cash for KSM. 30:50.022 --> 30:53.826 [SPEAKER_02]: And in the book talks about what I think the money was used for, and what it was meant for, and things like that. 30:54.467 --> 30:55.988 [SPEAKER_02]: But then, 9-11 happens. 30:57.619 --> 31:10.368 [SPEAKER_02]: And, and a sum of it laden is out it as if anybody wanted a bleed ignorance or willful mission, whatever it is, knows that bin laden is the leader of Al Qaeda, a terrorist group. 31:11.488 --> 31:13.510 [SPEAKER_02]: So what does psycholoporachid do? 31:13.790 --> 31:20.015 [SPEAKER_02]: He continues to work with KSM and then KSM's nephew Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. 31:21.090 --> 31:26.312 [SPEAKER_02]: And then he continues to handle money, transfer money, work with them, and all those kind of things. 31:26.332 --> 31:39.118 [SPEAKER_02]: He admitted for a involuntary statement that he discussed, you know, this whole business of at least shipping explosives, whether it was tangible or an idea that still material support given, and then his business card was an all kind of safe houses and things like that. 31:39.759 --> 31:49.143 [SPEAKER_02]: So I think just on that basis alone, there's no question that after 911, he knew that he was working with Al Qaeda, and then if you want to take it a step further, 31:49.898 --> 32:03.905 [SPEAKER_02]: Ali Abdul Aziz Ali in 2003 was captured and there were so there were working at that time with Majid Khan to do this kind of this other ancillary thing and Saffila Pracha continues to work with Ali. 32:04.840 --> 32:05.720 [SPEAKER_02]: And they can do so. 32:05.921 --> 32:07.321 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so you're not worried. 32:07.401 --> 32:13.204 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's interesting how you deal with torture and the use of tortured evidence and how these stories are put together. 32:13.744 --> 32:27.270 [SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, I want to just be clear what you're saying is you think that there was enough evidence that was not provided by things that Majid Khan said or KSM said, but enough evidence separate from that that this could have been brought in federal court. 32:27.978 --> 32:35.345 [SPEAKER_02]: I think that this case could have been, at least for Cipher La Paracha, I think it could have been done without any classified statements. 32:35.966 --> 32:40.691 [SPEAKER_02]: And when I was put in the case, I had a whole binder of the classified stuff, but I had a whole plan. 32:40.711 --> 32:47.197 [SPEAKER_02]: That's why I think I convinced Captain Murphy that this case was prosecutable because I had a completely unclassified case. 32:47.938 --> 32:58.786 [SPEAKER_02]: based off of evidence that the FBI had obtained whether through Pakistan, whether through the court system, a lot of it was the oozeer information that was admissible, obviously, other stuff happened in his case. 32:59.667 --> 33:04.030 [SPEAKER_02]: But I think we have bank records in Pakistan that I think tied him more directly. 33:04.570 --> 33:22.583 [SPEAKER_04]: Michael, you said before, though, that the principal evidence that he might be involved in a nuclear smuggling plot came from KSM during his sessions being tortured at a black side, so you couldn't 33:28.267 --> 33:35.553 [SPEAKER_04]: related this to some sort of nuclear or dirty bomb plot, what would have been the evidence other than KSM? 33:35.653 --> 33:37.034 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, what else did you get? 33:37.054 --> 33:38.315 [SPEAKER_02]: They could have gotten. 33:38.395 --> 33:39.376 [SPEAKER_02]: They could have gotten you there. 33:40.016 --> 33:42.839 [SPEAKER_02]: I love the grilling and I have an answer for that, but so thank you. 33:43.499 --> 33:45.181 [SPEAKER_02]: We haven't even started grilling. 33:45.201 --> 33:51.105 [SPEAKER_02]: All right, so I don't think you would have gotten everything, but I think the parts that 33:56.209 --> 34:04.856 [SPEAKER_02]: during his interrogations that he was speaking with them about, you know, smuggling explosives of some kind to Europe. 34:05.357 --> 34:06.598 [SPEAKER_02]: He said that voluntarily. 34:07.178 --> 34:17.607 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think the information that corroborates that are his business card and his emails that were found in Al Qaeda safe houses that kind of all corroborated that. 34:18.445 --> 34:19.906 [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so that's that part of it. 34:19.946 --> 34:20.486 [SPEAKER_02]: Now there's different. 34:20.506 --> 34:22.567 [SPEAKER_02]: There were different points to this. 34:22.607 --> 34:26.789 [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't just a smuggling part, at least for a federal case, because it is the book. 34:26.949 --> 34:32.331 [SPEAKER_02]: Totally, you know, is completely open with a lot of it was based off of the torture and things like that. 34:32.771 --> 34:40.735 [SPEAKER_02]: But a lot of it, the material support for a lot of goes with the handling the money and the giving the advice and things like that. 34:41.946 --> 35:02.951 [SPEAKER_01]: and given the hundreds of cases in which material support convictions were given in, you know, the decade plus after, not 11 that, that comports with your theory, but I want to turn to Uzair, because in a way what you're saying is there was not justice as you would have argued it as a prosecutor for the father, sci-fula. 35:03.511 --> 35:06.352 [SPEAKER_01]: Would you think there was justice in how the federal 35:11.025 --> 35:21.848 [SPEAKER_02]: I do, and the book talks about, there's a chapter that talks about how User's case ended and kind of the decision-making at DOJ and whether to give him a second trial. 35:23.628 --> 35:34.771 [SPEAKER_02]: So I think, User's a tragic story, you know, I'm not going to, and I think the book gets that across that, User was not a terrorist in the traditional sense. 35:35.351 --> 35:39.312 [SPEAKER_02]: He was, in the book talks, he was a spoiled rich kid, and I think User would have admitted 35:41.132 --> 35:45.396 [SPEAKER_02]: He was a spoiled rich kid that he wanted to help his father's business. 35:45.416 --> 35:50.500 [SPEAKER_02]: He was just, he was about to get married in 2003, nothing to do with terrorism. 35:51.041 --> 35:57.827 [SPEAKER_02]: But he also was one of those guys, just like many other families, particularly traditional Pakistani families that he wanted. 35:58.607 --> 36:04.691 [SPEAKER_02]: to, you know, do right by his father and his father asked him to do a few things. 36:04.731 --> 36:06.653 [SPEAKER_02]: He asked him to help this magic con guy. 36:07.693 --> 36:16.319 [SPEAKER_02]: And users like whatever, because remember, the whole point of Cifula and his approach is wool and this really was, they got in over their heads with this real estate deal. 36:16.920 --> 36:20.963 [SPEAKER_02]: Al Qaeda offered them 200,000 euros to invest in the real estate. 36:21.583 --> 36:24.945 [SPEAKER_02]: And his approach was going to take over that part of the business. 36:27.407 --> 36:28.830 [SPEAKER_02]: the al Qaeda guys as clients. 36:29.331 --> 36:33.078 [SPEAKER_02]: Like if there's ever a businessman defense, who's your had it? 36:33.258 --> 36:37.466 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's no question the problem is, and this is where who's your 36:39.034 --> 36:40.595 [SPEAKER_02]: knew that he was working with Al Qaeda. 36:40.995 --> 36:45.918 [SPEAKER_02]: And this gets to I think what you're getting at care in the Maji Khan and how it got overturned was that. 36:45.978 --> 37:00.907 [SPEAKER_02]: So what happens is, except for the parache of the father, ask he was here to help this kind of other Pakistani kid, who was a resident of Baltimore to sneak himself back into United States because Maji Khan screwed up his immigration papers. 37:01.838 --> 37:05.279 [SPEAKER_02]: And who's here is like, okay, this guy's kind of an idiot, but he's a client. 37:05.939 --> 37:08.660 [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I'm gonna go help my client out, my dad asked me too. 37:09.500 --> 37:17.762 [SPEAKER_02]: So who's here is hanging out with MajiCon and MajiCon turns to who's here and says, because MajiCon was not the brightest guy, right? 37:17.822 --> 37:23.264 [SPEAKER_02]: And he actually says, according to MajiCon later on, and who's here admits this and then recants it. 37:23.764 --> 37:30.146 [SPEAKER_02]: Who's according to them, MajiCon said, hey, do you want to join the cause and be a brother? 37:31.246 --> 37:35.689 [SPEAKER_02]: and magic or oozinger knew that he was talking about al-Qaeda and oozinger refused. 37:35.709 --> 37:37.591 [SPEAKER_02]: He said no, I don't want anything to do with al-Qaeda. 37:37.931 --> 37:41.093 [SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, he was not convicted on terrorism charges. 37:41.754 --> 37:47.738 [SPEAKER_03]: He was convicted of helping my circumvent immigration procedures and so on. 37:47.938 --> 37:52.702 [SPEAKER_03]: She fooled the INS into its residency in the United States. 37:53.447 --> 37:55.708 [SPEAKER_02]: Right, but the problem was that magic on was a terrorist. 37:55.808 --> 38:02.329 [SPEAKER_03]: But I want to get back to the case with the prosecution against Cipher at Gitmo, but we have to step away for just a second. 38:06.510 --> 38:07.170 [SPEAKER_03]: So we're back. 38:07.610 --> 38:11.391 [SPEAKER_03]: Cipher is the guy who cannot be released. 38:11.411 --> 38:12.691 [SPEAKER_03]: He can't be prosecuted. 38:13.111 --> 38:18.072 [SPEAKER_03]: He ends up spending more than 16 and a half years in Gitmo. 38:19.333 --> 38:21.033 [SPEAKER_03]: And then he's eventually released. 38:21.763 --> 38:23.304 [SPEAKER_03]: So what happened with that? 38:24.184 --> 38:26.285 [SPEAKER_02]: So this is why the book is not. 38:26.765 --> 38:31.686 [SPEAKER_02]: I intended not to just be a historical story in the traditional sense of what happened in 2003. 38:32.186 --> 38:37.008 [SPEAKER_02]: I thought it was really important to tell the story of post 9-11 era from 9-11 to today to 2026. 38:40.229 --> 38:50.035 [SPEAKER_02]: And what happened, I say, through a paraccia, I think fits really well with, I'm trying to try and to convey in the book, that a few things happens. 38:50.055 --> 38:59.722 [SPEAKER_02]: I think it started, I analyzed it that around 2016 a sense of complacency really started in the United States with a public, even with politicians regarding 39:00.522 --> 39:02.003 [SPEAKER_02]: you know international terrorism. 39:02.023 --> 39:08.709 [SPEAKER_02]: You know there wasn't a major attack in a long time ISIS was kind of like had its rise and was kind of on the way out again. 39:09.029 --> 39:13.012 [SPEAKER_02]: There were lone wolves of course, but then life moved on, right? 39:13.092 --> 39:20.058 [SPEAKER_02]: And then you had someone like Cypher Liparacha and there's also another guy at the same time that was a gitmo named Muhammad al-Katani. 39:20.758 --> 39:22.421 [SPEAKER_02]: He was the 20th hijacker. 39:23.002 --> 39:28.150 [SPEAKER_02]: He was the guy that was supposed to be in Flight 93, the 911 Commission, talks about this. 39:28.190 --> 39:29.292 [SPEAKER_02]: My book talks about it. 39:30.013 --> 39:31.155 [SPEAKER_02]: And here's what happens in 2022. 39:34.613 --> 39:44.998 [SPEAKER_02]: They released Katani, the 20th hijacker, and then after Katani was released, they released Parachia with, there was a two sentence statement for Parachia to saying like, all right, he's done. 39:45.078 --> 39:52.482 [SPEAKER_02]: Usually every time he denied his release, there was a long statement about how he didn't accept responsibility, all they wanted to accept responsibility, he wanted to do it. 39:53.062 --> 40:00.726 [SPEAKER_02]: So nobody cared, it was so anti-climatic, and it's still took a year and a half to release Parachia after he was finally, 40:02.927 --> 40:16.832 [SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, so when that review board set up by President Obama released him in 2022, were you consulted before that decision was made? 40:16.872 --> 40:20.854 [SPEAKER_04]: Did you argue the case for not releasing him? 40:21.194 --> 40:24.495 [SPEAKER_04]: And if not, what was your reaction when you saw you've been released? 40:26.336 --> 40:50.546 [SPEAKER_02]: It was not consulted, but I wasn't surprised because President Biden in 2022 was, you know, it kind of had a lack of days ago approach to handling it, because President Obama wanted to just close it down politics got in the way President Trump's first administration, you know, didn't kind of didn't really do much with it, but then President Biden was trying to cut deals and it's just kind of like, 40:51.708 --> 40:54.350 [SPEAKER_02]: Nobody cared anymore, and I think I saw it coming. 40:54.750 --> 40:57.132 [SPEAKER_02]: And I was just looking to see when Proch had be released. 40:57.672 --> 41:04.997 [SPEAKER_02]: But once some Katani, the 20th hijacker was released, I'm like, there's no way they're going to keep Proch there anymore in October of that year. 41:05.558 --> 41:06.598 [SPEAKER_02]: They finally released them. 41:06.799 --> 41:12.002 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think at the end of the day, I'm probably personally okay with it. 41:12.723 --> 41:17.246 [SPEAKER_02]: Because I mean, Proch has served a long time without charge. 41:19.227 --> 41:22.229 [SPEAKER_02]: My whole point was in effort to charge him with do the right thing. 41:23.050 --> 41:24.711 [SPEAKER_02]: I was trying to take a principle approach to it. 41:24.731 --> 41:27.092 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not trying to make me sound like the hero in this or anything like that. 41:27.533 --> 41:28.814 [SPEAKER_02]: It was my job to do that. 41:29.794 --> 41:32.016 [SPEAKER_02]: I think that case was certainly prosecutable. 41:33.437 --> 41:36.279 [SPEAKER_02]: But I think, uh, brought you a lot. 41:36.919 --> 41:50.408 [SPEAKER_02]: you know, maybe not legally, you know, I do think it's kind of unfortunate that we're still having the conversation of whether and we always will because he's not convicted, whether he was you know, supporting Al Qaeda in some sense. 41:51.149 --> 41:54.771 [SPEAKER_02]: But Parachalost is family, he lost his contacts, he lost his wealth. 41:55.431 --> 41:58.994 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, his family didn't greet him when he arrived back in Pakistan. 42:05.478 --> 42:08.959 [SPEAKER_02]: Let them live out his days, it's kind of my view of that to be honest. 42:08.979 --> 42:23.705 [SPEAKER_04]: So, larger picture here, here we are on the 25th anniversary of 9-11, and the military commission trials have proven to be a complete fiasco. 42:24.526 --> 42:29.267 [SPEAKER_04]: Arguably, if the worst legal disaster in American history, 42:33.469 --> 42:59.470 [SPEAKER_04]: In these last few weeks, it's finally supposed to make a decision, or rain a decision about whether all the tortured evidence can be led in to a trial of the guy who actually did commit 9-11, colleague Sheikh Muhammad, and to some people say, like, my god, you know, we've had this guy in custody for more than two decades, 43:00.310 --> 43:02.372 [SPEAKER_04]: It's 25 years since 9-11. 43:02.992 --> 43:04.313 [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, what? 43:04.533 --> 43:05.714 [SPEAKER_03]: Convictum already. 43:05.914 --> 43:06.575 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. 43:06.835 --> 43:14.040 [SPEAKER_04]: Or transform the federal court or do something because clearly this process is ain't working. 43:14.461 --> 43:16.102 [SPEAKER_04]: And it's going to be going on for years. 43:16.162 --> 43:19.244 [SPEAKER_04]: Even if they get a conviction, they'll be appeals and then more appeals. 43:19.764 --> 43:19.865 [SPEAKER_04]: And 43:21.156 --> 43:27.960 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, people throw up their hands and say, let me just add something to his question because there's a part of it that's in there. 43:28.401 --> 43:30.542 [SPEAKER_01]: So you're going to like this one, Michael. 43:31.022 --> 43:37.206 [SPEAKER_01]: So do you really think now after all this that what Michael's suggesting that they could ever bring him to federal court? 43:38.847 --> 43:41.129 [SPEAKER_01]: I should go ahead as I say that I'm asking you. 43:41.469 --> 43:44.111 [SPEAKER_01]: Can they bring him to federal court and without the tortured evidence? 43:45.872 --> 43:47.293 [SPEAKER_01]: And given the fact that he's tortured 43:49.958 --> 43:50.698 [SPEAKER_02]: I believe so. 43:50.738 --> 43:51.038 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. 43:51.999 --> 44:00.941 [SPEAKER_02]: I believe with the evidence that the government has the classified evidence and probably some classified evidence that's not based off of torture. 44:01.861 --> 44:05.022 [SPEAKER_02]: I think you can probably put that all together and do it. 44:06.042 --> 44:14.924 [SPEAKER_02]: I wrote an article in the American University International Law Review a few years ago that did a real deep dive into Michael's point of while the military 44:19.245 --> 44:23.968 [SPEAKER_02]: And it kind of talks about getting them to federal court a little bit and things like that. 44:24.288 --> 44:45.340 [SPEAKER_02]: I think it'd be hard to do because the issue with that is, I mean, Eric Holder tried it with President Obama, and here's what happened, and my book talks about this as well, and I think it's still an issue today to some degree, although there's a lot more complacency as I talked about, is that the Congress passed a law saying that they cannot transfer Guantanamo 44:47.851 --> 45:06.467 [SPEAKER_02]: Um, yeah, but after the Gailani trial, which you also talk about and that actually I think was, uh, yes, and the Gailani trial was a disaster, even though it's convicted sentenced to life, he was the guy that was convicted of the of the embassy bombings in Africa, but he was acquitted an all but one count. 45:07.362 --> 45:21.138 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think destroying federal 284 of 285 counts he was acquitted on right and I think people were just oh my god because he had Galani was the first and only detainee to remove from point on a mile to New York. 45:21.158 --> 45:22.199 [SPEAKER_01]: It was a test case. 45:22.259 --> 45:23.821 [SPEAKER_01]: He was the test case for the 911 trial. 45:25.062 --> 45:30.023 [SPEAKER_02]: And then we had the underwear bomber after that, where people were like, oh, why isn't he at Guantanamo? 45:30.483 --> 45:31.824 [SPEAKER_02]: I just kind of spiraled from there. 45:32.804 --> 45:36.045 [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I think, I mean, I think you can do it. 45:36.065 --> 45:45.847 [SPEAKER_02]: The military commission system, I think, is just the way the system was set up statutorily, because military commissions historically, were not meant to be a creature of Congress. 45:46.167 --> 45:49.068 [SPEAKER_02]: They were meant to be exigents, battlefield, 45:50.234 --> 45:55.796 [SPEAKER_02]: cases and trials, when there was a war crime that was going on and they run the battlefield and they had to handle what they handled. 45:55.836 --> 46:14.321 [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't meant for Congress to do statutory rules and things like that, which then you kind of get the death penalty in which at the 9 11 case and it becomes this hybrid, I call it a zombie court because it's something that refuses to die and it just keeps on going and nobody can kill it. 46:15.238 --> 46:29.802 [SPEAKER_03]: So spinning this forward to the present, we're in a real war of sorts with Iran, if we capture from your vast and deep experience with the military commissions and all these cases. 46:31.133 --> 46:50.470 [SPEAKER_03]: If we captured an Iranian agent, someone captured him for us in L.I., who was plotting to, you know, a major terrorist act in the United States, would you ship into Guantanamo or would you bring him to federal court? 46:52.738 --> 47:04.625 [SPEAKER_02]: I would say as of how things stand right now do not ship into Guantanamo, I just don't think that the military commissions right now, there's Dutch autorly set up for al-Qaeda and associated forces. 47:05.385 --> 47:06.746 [SPEAKER_02]: So what are you going to do when you do that? 47:07.066 --> 47:17.432 [SPEAKER_02]: And there actually was a guy that was extradited to United States recently, I think he was an Iranian proxy and he was plotting to blow up Jewish targets in New York. 47:18.392 --> 47:23.595 [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, they brought them, I think, from Turkey to the United States. 47:24.216 --> 47:26.817 [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that answers your question from a practical point. 47:26.837 --> 47:31.760 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think anyone's going to want to the political capital of just locking some up in Guantanamo now for that. 47:31.780 --> 47:37.524 [SPEAKER_01]: Michael, your book ends in a place that's really unexpected, which is your fears for the present day. 47:38.204 --> 48:02.002 [SPEAKER_01]: and you sort of pivot and talk about how whatever system we had in the past in terms of federal courts, et cetera, are ways of keeping ourselves safe, whether it's DHS, you know, trying to or intelligence, or whether it's the courts themselves, a lot of the apparatus for detecting terrorism, coming up with policies for preventing terrorism, and even things that have to do with 48:07.627 --> 48:08.639 [SPEAKER_01]: Talk about that a little bit. 48:09.847 --> 48:12.549 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so the book takes an analysis. 48:12.569 --> 48:37.628 [SPEAKER_02]: This is why I tie in the second wave plotting to now, because as Cypherloparachas and Guantanamo and things like that, and about at base to about 2016, as I mentioned earlier, where that's when they started like leaders in Congress and administration started saying, hey, you know, maybe we can do some budget cuts, maybe like FEMA grants or things like that, things that are designed to protect like in enhanced counterterrorism measures. 48:38.448 --> 48:50.475 [SPEAKER_02]: And that kind of gradually went more and more forward as the complacency was going on until you get to a few years ago, then no, where it kind of falls off a cliff. 48:51.055 --> 48:54.177 [SPEAKER_02]: So after 9-11, there were a lot of recommendations. 48:54.197 --> 48:56.599 [SPEAKER_02]: The 9-11 Commission made recommendations. 48:57.419 --> 48:59.660 [SPEAKER_02]: The FBI Inspector General made recommendations. 48:59.681 --> 49:07.045 [SPEAKER_02]: They was all designed as a whole of government approach to protect us from the next 9-11, the next catastrophic attack. 49:07.545 --> 49:24.757 [SPEAKER_02]: And those have been eroded, all the multiple administrations, Democrat and Republican, but what's happening now is I think the FBI law enforcement DHS, the refocused immigration, which of course the president has entitled hit to carry out his agenda. 49:25.477 --> 49:27.898 [SPEAKER_02]: And the book doesn't take any stance on any of those things. 49:27.938 --> 49:49.402 [SPEAKER_02]: The issue is, is that I think what's happening is of the refocusing is that we've lost thousands of FBI agents and analysts, which goes exactly contrary to the 9-11 commission and FBI recommendations post 9-11, which is, you've got to retain and train the analysts and the agents and everybody other translators. 49:49.882 --> 49:52.582 [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of that's happening, budget cuts are happening 49:55.943 --> 50:01.726 [SPEAKER_02]: on immigration and things like that, and the concern is that the terrorist groups are reconstituting. 50:02.346 --> 50:08.369 [SPEAKER_02]: In Africa is where a lot of stuff is happening outside of our eye, there's a group called JNIM. 50:09.470 --> 50:19.715 [SPEAKER_02]: They're on the march in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin, and what they're doing is they're doing a different from the ISIS model, where ISIS, you know, took 50:20.175 --> 50:39.917 [SPEAKER_02]: gathered the space and they've kind of focused on, you know, propaganda, the attract-known wolves to do attacks and things like that, where, Jan, I am, if they have a vicious leader, they could, and they could get people to come in there, they have the space to train people and plan a catastrophic attack, if they choose to make their case international. 50:41.219 --> 50:57.982 [SPEAKER_02]: And by partisan military people, a lot of people are talking about Africa as the next threat point, and I think that's where we need to focus, we need to, I mean, and I think that's where the book kind of ends it with is that these threats aren't gone, they're still there, they're reconstituting in a different way. 50:58.949 --> 51:06.652 [SPEAKER_02]: And the complacency combines with the kind of re- focusing of priority is just taking us to a pre-9-11 posture. 51:06.992 --> 51:09.633 [SPEAKER_02]: And if you want, I can tell you a quick story. 51:09.773 --> 51:12.494 [SPEAKER_02]: The tell is exactly where this could go if you had a minute. 51:13.234 --> 51:17.395 [SPEAKER_02]: So five weeks before 9-11, I talked about Muhammad Akatani, the 20th High Jacker. 51:17.795 --> 51:19.456 [SPEAKER_02]: He showed up at the Orlando Airport. 51:20.400 --> 51:24.261 [SPEAKER_02]: Um, they viewed him at, he was sorely, and he got interviewed. 51:24.601 --> 51:27.042 [SPEAKER_02]: They viewed him as a migrants, and they sent him home. 51:27.562 --> 51:30.603 [SPEAKER_02]: But what the investigators had in their hand was a travel light dinner, right? 51:31.163 --> 51:33.983 [SPEAKER_02]: With Mustafa, I was, I was, I was always contacted information. 51:34.363 --> 51:38.905 [SPEAKER_02]: He was the main al-Qaeda guy who was handling logistics for the hijackers in the United States. 51:39.585 --> 51:42.986 [SPEAKER_02]: And Katani also had a prepant, plain phone calling card that they had. 51:43.506 --> 51:45.146 [SPEAKER_02]: That was connected to Kala Chikmahamid. 51:49.167 --> 51:51.148 [SPEAKER_02]: for Katani, until he said, he was a no show. 51:51.168 --> 51:52.609 [SPEAKER_02]: Then they called him, said, oh, he didn't show up. 51:53.410 --> 52:03.257 [SPEAKER_02]: So that is an example of where, if you're so focused on immigration and not focused on the national security part of it, themes can fall through the cracks. 52:03.617 --> 52:08.760 [SPEAKER_02]: If there's anything from the book, it's that themes can fall through the cracks if these perfect storms happen. 52:08.800 --> 52:11.082 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what the book is warning against. 52:12.047 --> 52:25.021 [SPEAKER_03]: How confident are you about the capability and expertise of US intelligence to stay on top of this problem? 52:26.630 --> 52:28.871 [SPEAKER_02]: I have the confidence with them and don't get me wrong. 52:28.891 --> 52:33.313 [SPEAKER_02]: I've worked with intelligence community for many years, law enforcement for many years. 52:33.813 --> 52:37.735 [SPEAKER_02]: The concern now is that information might fall through the cracks. 52:37.775 --> 52:43.717 [SPEAKER_02]: That's the bigger issue where because you have, it's well documented that FBI agents are wearing multiple hats now. 52:43.757 --> 52:50.340 [SPEAKER_02]: They've been focused on immigration while also trying to do the regular counterterrorism jobs, to adjust the same thing. 52:51.100 --> 52:54.401 [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and that's the issue is the Katani situation can something fall through the cracks. 52:54.781 --> 52:57.262 [SPEAKER_02]: If you look back at the Katani time, liquid happened. 52:57.282 --> 52:59.523 [SPEAKER_02]: There was a, um, a guy named John O'Neill. 52:59.943 --> 53:12.047 [SPEAKER_02]: He was, uh, front line called him the man who knew he was the, you saw a bin Laden expert that was screaming from the tree chops that an attack was going to happen and he was trying to warn them and he, he was kind of a colorful character in his own right. 53:12.627 --> 53:20.414 [SPEAKER_02]: But he got into it with the acting director of the FBI, guys named Thomas Picard, and O'Neill, prior to 9-11, got forced out of the FBI. 53:21.095 --> 53:24.297 [SPEAKER_02]: And if O'Neill had been in the FBI, maybe he would have caught those cracks. 53:25.078 --> 53:30.983 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's not really the capabilities, it's the manpower and the focus that I am concerned about. 53:32.024 --> 53:38.210 [SPEAKER_02]: There's a way to do it, and three out of the adjet partner in Subgender, without sacrificing international terrorism stopping it. 53:39.753 --> 53:56.408 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, you've given us a great inside look at the prosecution of these cases and the war on terror, which is a really unique, I think, in a way and it's kind of just spiriting I must say for myself, the Gitmo mess, the prosecution is the black site torture. 53:58.727 --> 54:03.630 [SPEAKER_03]: and competent interrogators like Agent Ruby and so on. 54:04.510 --> 54:05.031 [SPEAKER_03]: What a mess! 54:06.131 --> 54:18.118 [SPEAKER_03]: But anyone who wants to get inside these cases would do well to pick up second wave inside al Qaeda's post 9-11 attack plan and America's secret effort to stop it. 54:19.039 --> 54:20.620 [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Michael, for coming on the show. 54:21.480 --> 54:22.161 [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you very much. 54:25.637 --> 54:27.338 [SPEAKER_03]: And that's it for this week's by-talk. 54:27.399 --> 54:32.102 [SPEAKER_03]: Be sure to check out our complete podcast archive on Apple wherever you get your podcast. 54:32.543 --> 54:47.415 [SPEAKER_03]: And if you haven't already, do check out thespitealk.co new site on Substack, where we offer steady diet of scopes and the original analyses from the intersection of intelligence, foreign policy, and military operations. 54:47.455 --> 54:48.857 [SPEAKER_03]: Just Google Spitealk. 54:49.277 --> 54:50.958 [SPEAKER_03]: You'll quickly find your way there. 54:51.839 --> 55:00.912 [SPEAKER_03]: This edition of the SpyTalk podcast was smoothly produced, as always, by can I, and expertly edited by Molly Hawkey for MSW Media. 55:02.054 --> 55:02.374 [SPEAKER_03]: That's it. 55:02.675 --> 55:03.275 [SPEAKER_03]: See you around. 55:03.416 --> 55:04.217 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Jeff Stein. 55:04.617 --> 55:05.419 [SPEAKER_03]: Am I going to go off? 55:05.679 --> 55:06.540 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Karen Greenberg. 55:07.041 --> 55:07.942 [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for listening. 55:08.904 --> 55:17.306 [SPEAKER_00]: For more original reporting and insights like this, subscribe to SpyTalk.co on Substack and follow us on Twitter at Talk Under Score Spy. 55:17.786 --> 55:24.948 [SPEAKER_00]: If you enjoyed our 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