Joshua Mast (4:39)

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Stephanie Mast (5:21)

Thank you guys for coming in. I think I've done a lot of important shows that felt important when I did them. This might be the biggest, impossible injustice I have ever reported on. Your story is remarkable. It's very complex and so I want to take it carefully, linearly. So we'll just tell the story. The first part needs to be, who are you? Introduce yourselves.

Joshua Mast (6:01)

Well, first, thank you for having us on. We really appreciate it. Growing up listening to you and Rush, it's just surreal to be able to sit here and talk with you.

Stephanie Mast (6:11)

Thank you.

Joshua Mast (6:12)

So I'm an active duty Marine. I'm a major in the Marine Corps.

Stephanie Mast (6:15)

Active duty.

Joshua Mast (6:16)

Active duty. So all this is my opinion, not on behalf of the government or anybody else.

Stephanie Mast (6:20)

Got it.

Joshua Mast (6:21)

In fact, a lot of it will be kind of focused on some government action that's happened to our family. I would say describing us, we're a family of five grown up, traveling with the Marine Corps. I've had a child born at every duty station. I'd say we're a pretty archetypical military family.

Glenn Beck (6:36)

Yes. You've been in for 14 years now. So we've been married for 18 years. So our entire married life, most of our married life has been in the Marine Corps and proud of, I mean, love the experience. And our four, we have five kids, four of them are boys. A lot of them want to grow up to be a mariner. That's what they say at this age. And so just red blooded patriots through and through.

Stephanie Mast (7:00)

How's mom with the idea of the Marines?

Glenn Beck (7:02)

I tell them to be open to, but absolutely, I mean I'm proud of the Marine Corps and just, you know, even our service members in general and so I love to the community and so we've been happy to be a part of it.

Stephanie Mast (7:16)

You guys have been together for how long?

Joshua Mast (7:19)

18 years.

Glenn Beck (7:20)

Well, married 18 years. I met him when I was 11, he was 12. So we're childhood sweethearts. Grew up together, started dating in high school and been together ever since. So really, I mean truly best friends and been through everything together.

Stephanie Mast (7:35)

Okay, so now we have to introduce your daughter. Four boys, one girl.

Glenn Beck (7:40)

Yes.

Stephanie Mast (7:41)

She's the center of a lot of controversy and to protect her we're going to have to use John Doe's Jane Doe and her name is not a real name.

Joshua Mast (7:53)

Sparrow. That's right.

Stephanie Mast (7:56)

Tell me about Sparrow. Who, who is she? Where did she come from? Where did the nickname come from?

Glenn Beck (8:05)

Okay, well, first of all, I'll tell who she is today. So she is a five year old girl that loves, just like any other girl, loves baby dolls and anything girly pink, purple coloring, just loves life, loves dogs and playing outside with her brothers. And she's just a blessing and a true joy, just the most gracious little girl that you could possibly imagine. She has a remarkable past and if you saw her today, you would never believe what she has been through.

Stephanie Mast (8:42)

So I don't know what your parameters are as a Marine, but you claim that she is the child of a foreign fighter in Afghanistan. Correct. Can you tell me what, tell me that scenario, what happened?

Joshua Mast (9:08)

Sure. So I was deployed in 2019 in Afghanistan. I was attached to operational headquarters of the four star in overall Command of both US And NATO forces. And so I will never forget, I was walking to dinner one night with our staff. My colonel was a senior staff judge advocate, phenomenal leader. Really appreciated my time under him. But he said, what the heck are we gonna do with this baby? Walk into dinner and what baby, sir? And he said, oh. The operators had knocked over an Al Qaeda facility last night, and there was an only. There was only one survivor. It was a baby. We didn't know it was boy or girl or much details about it, but it sounded like it was bad. And so your gut reaction and the reaction of folks from rangers on the ground to medical staff to us was, well, what can we do? You immediately volunteer. Like, how do we make sure a safe outcome for this child? And it kind of developed from there. And we learned more about it over time. And now we have eyewitness testimony and declassified information from the most sophisticated unit in Afghanistan at that time in a 19 year developed theater with, I guess, a significant amount of intelligence about exactly who was there, exactly what they were doing and. And where they were from.

Stephanie Mast (10:28)

Okay. But the actual mission that night has been classified. Right.

Joshua Mast (10:32)

So portions of it have been declassified, and two eyewitnesses have testified that they.

Stephanie Mast (10:38)

Were there and they saw.

Joshua Mast (10:39)

They were there and saw and recovered her.

Stephanie Mast (10:40)

So how did mom and dad die?

Joshua Mast (10:45)

Well, I guess I should probably just give you an overview of the mission.

Stephanie Mast (10:49)

Okay.

Joshua Mast (10:50)

So it was the 6th of September, 2019, in the period of darkness between the 5th and the 6th, at night. That's when they owned the night. It was a Ranger regiment mission, which was one of our most sophisticated units in Afghanistan at that time. And so they infiltrate to an area where there's a known Al Qaeda compound, and they're trying to capture or kill three Al Qaeda leaders. And they also had another series of compounds nearby that had more fighters in them. And so they had two platoon sized elements of Rangers in the COVID of darkness, basically sneaking up on these compounds, surrounding them, and then issuing a demand to surrender or die. And they were briefed. And what happened exactly as they were briefed. They expected them to fight to the death. And that's exactly what happened in brutal close combat over an hour and a half, where they sustained multiple US Casualties. Two guys partially paralyzed, almost a dozen, I believe, Rangers wounded, and then a dozen of the Afghan partner force were also wounded in a very kinetic engagement.

Stephanie Mast (11:54)

So our Rangers are there, but when does Sparrow come into the scene? Is she with mom, dad, both? What are mom and dad doing?

Joshua Mast (12:04)

So a little bit of both. So the multi purpose canine handler or dog handler is how we colloquially refer to them. He described when they initially breached the structure, seeing a man holding a little baby, which we believe was her, and having an AK47 and firing at them, engaging them. And then that weapon jammed. And so the man disappeared, the baby was no longer with him, and a grenade rolled out. So he says he had a distinct memory of looking down and seeing this grenade. And as he described it, it was like a homemade explosive. So he says, I covered my dog and I yelled grenade. Because there was rangers stacked up on the breach. And he said, even though I was the closest one, somehow I didn't get hit. And several of his buddies did got fragmentation wounds. And so they had to, they were forced to, with knowing there was a child in there, throw grenades back in exchange, there was an exchange of grenades at close range and they had sympathetic detonations of other explosives going off from the grenades they threw into the room. And from there they did a series of what they call barricaded shooters. So it is a suicidal terrorist who will barricade themselves in with the presence of their family in a room and engage whoever's coming in that room and not surrender, no matter what. They will even blow up their families rather than surrender. And that's exactly what they experienced in room after room after room through this relatively small leadership compound. And so you asked where was she recovered? So as they culminate and they get to one of the last rooms in this structure, they had run out of breaching explosives. And so they used what's called a Carl Gustav or a goose gun, which is a bazooka for lack of a better descriptor. And they used that to blow a hole in the final room to clear it of the remaining terrace. And that blast killed that original, what we believe was the biological father. And the Ranger testified under oath that he observed what ended up being her biological mother run out of that hole that they created, screaming at him as he's like obliquing around a corner, covering whoever's going to come out and exploded a suicide device about 15ft from him. So that was his.

Stephanie Mast (14:21)

So on her she blew herself up.

Joshua Mast (14:23)

Correct.

Stephanie Mast (14:23)

And she was holding Sparrow.

Joshua Mast (14:25)

So he didn't realize that at the time. So as an American, we treat, you know, friendly enemy, we treat wounded. And so she was incapacitated, he dragged her, he had a berm, checked her medically, noticed that she was, she had given the. She had the signs of like recently giving birth. And he's kind of looking around with his night vision to like, and saw her moving out of the corner of his eye. And so she was about six weeks old. She suffered a fractured skull, a fractured left femur so bad they had to put a rod in to put it back together. And second degree burns on her face and neck from the Carl Gustav round or the mom's vest cooking off. It's hard to say with that many kinetic events happening around her, what exactly caused it, but, I mean, we're talking six inches and she's, you know, six inches higher and she's in vital areas. And an inch deeper into her skull and she's dead. And what was more remarkable is there's an Afghan partner force there, and they were engaged in clearing that room that they just breached. And they sustained a casualty and were very angry about that. And so they wanted. They literally came to our Rangers and they're like, let us shoot her in the head. The baby, the baby. Let's just throw her in the creek. And so they didn't want her to grow up to be a foreign terrorist in their country because they're engaged in a brutal civil war at that point with a lot of foreign terrorists. And these are the cultural experts. It's their culture. Who knows better than them? And so our guys physically resisted murdering our little girl. Now, on objective and honestly, the moral courage, while you have your own guys bleeding and you're in a kinetic fire, they still have that instinct as an American soldier to protect innocent life. I mean, I'm humbled.

Stephanie Mast (16:16)

So why did no one step forward? I mean, was it known that this baby was retrieved from this compound? I mean, I don't know what the situation is on how you put an ad out. Hey, are you relative to these people? I mean, you couldn't.

Joshua Mast (16:35)

That was some. So we've gotten to meet a. A bunch of phenomenal Americans at every level of government over the last five years in this. And one of them was the. He was what's called a civil affairs officer for the Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan. And I had some of those same questions as I'm kind of researching this. And we didn't know all this at the time, but over time we've learned. And he had asked the same question. Well, how do you safely advertise in an area controlled by Al Qaeda or Haqqani network in Afghanistan? How do you safely advertise that you've recovered a child? And then we had a lot of reports of foreign children doing very poorly in the Afghan orphanage system or being Treated prejudicially just because of the brutality of the war going on there. And so he'd actually asked some of the ICRC staff that were like, oh, we found somebody who might be able to take her. And he's like, well, are they related? We don't know. And so he was very concerned that they were having to rely on the word of basically Taliban local nationals in this Taliban controlled area for any sort of potential claimants. And that was a huge concern at our level, at the headquarters level as well, is like, how do we safely vet people?

Stephanie Mast (17:50)

So you're walking with your fellow Marine, and he says, what are we gonna do with this baby? When did it occur to you maybe we should adopt?

Joshua Mast (18:02)

Honestly, I think the gut instinct was we wanted to ensure the child's safety. Initially, it was just as an American, anybody downrange, I bet there's a million guys out there could close their eyes and say, hey, I can remember someone I was trying to help on deployment. That's what this was for us. Originally what happened was, is we were trying to, as a legal shop, guarantee a safe outcome for her. And I think DoD did a great job of doing that initially. And then we hit some interference later on with some other agencies. But what really caused us to seek adoption was getting her a visa.

Glenn Beck (18:42)

I'll never forget the phone call that I got because after that initial talk, walking into Chao hall, he called me and it was in the afternoon my time, and that was not the normal time for him to call me. So initially that scared me, like, okay, what's going on? It wasn't very long into his deployment, and so I picked up the phone and I'll never forget the tone of his voice. It just sounded different. And I guess I was searching instantly, like, okay, what's going on? And he said, hon, there's this baby. And I was standing in the kitchen, I just stopped and I was just listening to him describe that was a lone survivor of an Al Qaeda raid and they don't know what they're going to do with this baby. And so just trying to sort through that. And I mean, as a mom, my heart goes out. We didn't know at that point, boy, girl, we just knew baby, and it was injured and its future is, you know, up in the air. And so I was like, well, we can do something. We'll volunteer for it. And I mean, I'm already a stay at home mom, have young kids right around that age range. I know how vulnerable and just, you know, how precious children are. So it's like, we'll do something. And he's like, well, I'm glad you said that because I already volunteered. He's like, but, you know, they're gonna do a family trace and there's still a lot of things to figure out. So he's like, we'll see. But.

Stephanie Mast (20:04)

So this was at a time, at first you weren't thinking adoption, you were just thinking maybe.

Glenn Beck (20:09)

I mean, it wasn't. It was more of like, if there's. I mean, it was like he said, guaranteeing a safe outcome. So whatever that is, long term commitment. It wasn't just like, make sure the baby's bandaged up and okay. It was like, absolutely. Will open our home to a child that has a need like that.

Joshua Mast (20:26)

Yeah. And I would say that we were very aware at the time of the negotiations going on that they're going to, like, our presence is going to end very rapidly and then what's going to happen? Because a lot of the funding is going to be attached to that. And so our concern is just asking basic questions, like, how bad is she hurt? What unit picked her up? Why do they say she's foreign? And then as I used kind of the skill set that I had to pull some of that information for decision makers, it was very clear exactly who she was and where they came from. And then as you did research on, hey, what does an orphanage in Afghanistan look like? And then add to that, what does it look like when the US Leaves? That was especially for a girl, Especially for a foreign child.

Stephanie Mast (21:09)

So she was not from Afghanistan.

Joshua Mast (21:11)

Yeah. So all of the US Intelligence and everything has been declassified. And there's a significant amount that's still left that has not been declassified. Pointed to a foreign origin for her. This specific group is a Turkestani or Uyghur, Al Qaeda branch.

Stephanie Mast (21:28)

Okay. Yeah. So you decide to adopt. Right.

Glenn Beck (21:35)

Well, initially it was just seeking guardianship. And what Joshua said it was one step, just was the first step. And like Joshua said, it was getting a visa so that she could. Because she did have ongoing medical needs. Well, she would actually back up. It was the initial conversation. And then a couple weeks later, we see the very first photo and we call it the baby in the box. And there's this little girl in a Home Depot box on the floor of a hospital, wrapped up in blankets. And so that was the first time we found out basic age, that it's an infant and that it's a girl. And then it just. When you see a. Put a face to it.

Stephanie Mast (22:16)

Sure.

Glenn Beck (22:16)

That is just where you're like, okay, what can we do? So initially, it was just trying to guarantee safe, like, ongoing medical care in the United States, and we were seeking guardianship, but that was, you know, after you found out what the requirements are going to be.

Joshua Mast (22:32)

Yeah, I'd say, Glenn, that we initially just advocated to elevate the priority of this child's life in the US Government's eyes.

Stephanie Mast (22:40)

So when did you decide, she needs to be with us. She's ours.

Joshua Mast (22:47)

Well, I think it was in the midst of pursuing all the administrative requirements to get a visa. They kept saying, oh, well, she needs a name. Well, how do you get a name for a Jane Doe baby? That got blown up on an objective. And that was what the problem was. Then there was like, well, how do you arrange medical care in the US which was a requirement for the visa? How do you pay for that? How do you authorize surgery on a child, a minor child? Well, you have to have some sort of legal rights. And so as this developed, we're like, okay, well, I'll volunteer to be the financial sponsor for the visa. I'll volunteer to try and get some sort of legal ability to order medical care. And so it really evolved pretty organically from that.

Glenn Beck (23:25)

It was very organic, but it ultimately, I think, stemmed from our worldview. I mean, in that every life is precious. It doesn't matter race, ethnicity, background. I mean, she was an innocent caught in a terrible war. So it was just a protective instinct, and we were put in the position. There was, like he said, dozens of Americans. This was not just us. This was, across the board, the medical staff at Bagram. There were several people trying to protect and advocate for this one.

Stephanie Mast (23:58)

Was there anybody who was stepping up, saying, you can't do this, you can't do this, or was everybody pretty much on the same page?

Joshua Mast (24:05)

So I think initially there was a. A perspective that this is, like, it's an Afghan problem. It's a distraction from operations. And they were trying to use our command's influence to force the Afghans, who'd multiple times said, we don't have the capacity to care for a child like this. Like, I was in some of those meetings, but they were trying to force them to take them anyway. And so that's when we did a little bit of advocacy, trying to find. To elevate her status. Her status? Yeah, her priority of this life, because we had options. And that was successful. And then the administration, the first Trump administration, reached out and directed us to act in our best interest and try to get her back to the US which is pretty reasonable under the circumstances. And so we were thinking, hey, that's good to go. She's going to be safe. And as we're working that new direction, that new US Policy as an office, and then I was volunteering with some of my skill sets in my free time to get a visa. That's when all this kind of developed. And then I'd report that back to my husband. Hey, great news. We got guardianship. Great news. We got her added as a DOD dependent. Great news. She has that military ID like, we had everything lined up to get her home. And we just had some significant opposition at some point. And that was kind of the first.

Stephanie Mast (25:22)

From Department of State.

Glenn Beck (25:24)

Yeah. But I would like to say that, and I already alluded to this, is that she was loved by so many people. It wasn't just Joshua and I doing it. It was the medical staff and, like you said, the rangers and there people pulling together to the fact where we called her. To answer your question, Sparrow, after those initial phone calls and we started to get more information about her origin and genuinely started to care about her. You know, I had young kids at home, and it was. We were still early in the deployment, like, getting used to him being gone and, you know, me juggling life at home with young children. And I was finishing up my last semester in grad school and just trying to juggle life. And when we found out about her, at first I wasn't gonna tell the kids because it was such a. She's like, no, we're not gonna get them involved yet. But as it started to pick up momentum and actually look like it could happen, I remember mentioning it to the boys one night, and I was tucking them in bed, and I told them that there was this baby, and that was prior to us seeing the original baby in the box photo. And I said, there's a baby that's been hurt, and Daddy's trying to help see what can happen. So I said, well, let's pray for the baby. And there's a old hymn that's called His Eyes on the Sparrow. And so that's how Sparrow came to be, was we just prayed for baby Sparrow. And it was just kind of something that we would. You know, when we would pray in the morning or at night, we would pray for baby Sparrow. And so there was a little bit initial hesitancy involving our. Our family.

Stephanie Mast (26:59)

Sure.

Glenn Beck (27:00)

And it's still to this day because they're seeing us live this out. I mean, they're. They're in it with us.

Stephanie Mast (27:05)

Oh, I know.

Glenn Beck (27:06)

And as a family, we're, we're going through this together and seeing us through the highs and lows of all of it. But at the, at the core, it was, for me at that time, it took my attention off of myself and even kind of a little bit if I had the opor me, you know, syndrome always does. Yeah. And realizing that there was a real person out there with niche much greater than mine and that we could potentially make a difference. And so that was, I think, all of a sudden that it had purpose and meaning. And you on that side, you were working at nonstop.

Stephanie Mast (27:43)

So 2020 comes, State Department gets involved, what happens?

Joshua Mast (27:49)

So I guess would be important for the viewers to understand is the Trump administration reaching out was like a lightning bolt. It was, I'm a junior officer, I'm a captain. At the time, I kind of got the like, don't do that again. But, you know, it's a baby, so it's okay, we'll keep doing this. And so I got yelled at a little bit, which was, it was a relief not to get fired. But we pretty much turned around and said, okay, yeah, that makes sense. We're going to act in this child's best interest. We're going to try to get her to the States. And we were working that problem, but to coordinate with the Department of State, because you need that for visas. We had reached out to the embassy and set up a meeting. And I distinctly remember staying up till like three in the morning, pouring over the classified intel, pulling it together for a briefing. And we went to that meeting, DoD did, to brief them on exactly what we knew. And the reason that was important was because if this is a foreign child, we wouldn't turn a British or a French or a German foreign fighters over to an Afghan orphanage. We would repatriate them at a minimum. And also, if you're going to actually do a family trace, you'd have to go to the country of origin to see if there's anybody alive and who is safe. Because here's the reality. We were targeting this group. There was hundreds of them with their families coming back from Syria into this other war zone for a safe space. And we were hunting and killing them. And so one of our biggest concern was, like, even if you got a family member, if we give this child back to them, is she going to be on another objective and not be so lucky this time? I mean, and that's understanding how sophisticated this unit and this intelligence gathering apparatus is. They're killing this entire network, and they're doing it that month, and that was the priority in Afghanistan. So we are very aware. Just because of my background.

Glenn Beck (29:32)

Well, our two main concerns early on was her ongoing medical needs because she did suffer trauma, but also, like Joshua said, just that she would be put back on the X again and she'd be targeted. Right.

Stephanie Mast (29:42)

Or she's even taken by guys who are on our side and killed because of we don't need another foreign fighter. So the State Department tries to repatriate or tries to put her back with people they claim were her family.

Joshua Mast (29:58)

So going back to that meeting, instead of what was supposed to happen, of an informational meeting where we're supposed to inform them of what our classified intelligence says, they essentially ambushed us. They brought Afghans to this meeting where we can't brief on a classified level. And they basically tried to do a fait accompli where, like, hey, how soon can you take the baby? I mean, like, two days after the Trump administration reached out. That's what they were doing. I was in the meeting. And there's been a lot of. We'll get to that later in the story. But the Department of Justice under the previous administration has filed court filings saying, oh, Major mash knew there was known family at this particular meeting, but in reality, that was the detainee that our guys had taken off of the op. And I was there to tell you that this guy said he brought these people here from a foreign country and has been moving them around and identified these specific people in this compound as foreign fighters. That was just some rumor because somebody didn't have the right clearance, and we were going to clear that up. And so all of this could have avoided if you're not insubordinate, to the administration.

Stephanie Mast (31:01)

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Glenn Beck (32:29)

Bada but.

Stephanie Mast (32:32)

So who did they hand Sparrow over to?

Joshua Mast (32:35)

So there was about a month, two month period after that meeting where the State Department kind of was like we're not going to help people, we're not going to get in your way. And we had successfully negotiated a recommendation from the then existing Afghan government to send her to the states. The DoD had done that and it was ready to go. And so what happened is the State Department came back in and I have a colonel sworn testimony they lied about me and my family. Like oh, we'd done something improper with this or we didn't tell people, literally testified under oath here just in October that this State Department official had said lied about us. Then he said it was the most unprofessional meeting he'd ever been in. He's the acting staff judge advocate for a four star command who's in charge of the theater and he gets told stand down. State Department's got the lead, they're going to handle this.

Stephanie Mast (33:30)

That's exactly what we were told as a charity at the Abbey Gate. Stand down. State Department has this and that's when.

Joshua Mast (33:38)

Everybody lost that one.

Stephanie Mast (33:39)

Yeah, great job anyway.

Joshua Mast (33:42)

And I'm not trying to ding the entire State Department. I think that there's a lot of hope for the future in how we're moving forward with this. I agree and morale's high as far as I'm concerned, at least in our unit and but I will say that there are some people that don't reflect our values and they don't reflect, I don't think, a proper representation of what America is about. Sometimes in foreign countries we experience that.

Glenn Beck (34:08)

And so what we thought at the time was if we just get the facts in front of the right people, they'll do the right thing. Like that was it. We were very optimistic. And so it's like they just need to know the truth, and then this. There's not a question. And so we advocated, during that time, hard for her. And unfortunately, what we've now come to realize is that's not the case. And so it was literally.

Stephanie Mast (34:34)

It is with some.

Glenn Beck (34:35)

It is with some. But what Joshua said, the colonel testified to is when it came down to where they determined, and it came out in Joshua's board of inquiry, is they primarily saw her. There was a few key figures that primarily saw her as, like he said, an Afghan issue, an Afghan problem, or a distraction. And fundamentally, though, there was one female that testified at his board of inquiry, a service member, and she basically, she was upset that service members came to care for this child, like, at the hospital staff in Bagram, that they were buying baby supplies with their own mind, like they were trying to take care of her and make her comfortable. And just what else would you do? That's the question that we've always wondered, is, why wouldn't you? But they saw it as a distraction, something to be done away with.

Joshua Mast (35:27)

And I would say, Glenn, when I reached out to the hospital, I said, hey, we're trying to see if there's other better options for her. They were overjoyed. Like, they were like, let's go. We've been hoping somebody would help. And so we had what we called Operation Starfish, which was kind of a grassroots level, to try to get a.

Glenn Beck (35:43)

Safe outcome for her and the story. So she has two pseudonyms that it was either Sparrow or we called her Sparrow. They called her Starfish. And there's a poem where there's a boy walking along the ocean, and he's bending down, picking up and throwing the starfish back into the ocean. And so the line at the end is, an adult comes along and questions like, how can you possibly make a difference? The boy bends down and picks up another starfish and throws it into the ocean. He's like, well, it made a difference for that one. And for Starfish is what they called her. She was a symbol of the one that they could help, because in a terrible world where they're seeing unspeakable, like tragedy all the time, she was the unique one that they could help. And so there was this rally cry around her to protect her and to keep her safe.

Joshua Mast (36:29)

Yeah, to the point where we were waking up people. When the president visited Bagram for Thanksgiving in 2019, we were, like, waking people up, like, go find the President. Have him meet her a hundred yards from where she was. And we were so close. And that was when US Policy Was tried to get her back. So we're like, wouldn't it be cool if they go home on air force one? But we were, I guess from an intelligence perspective there was never a question of where she came from. This is totally like a gloss made up.

Stephanie Mast (36:59)

So how did this Afghani, these afghanis get entangled in all of this?

Joshua Mast (37:06)

Okay, so I think the best way I can explain this is the terms of the peace. Strategically, what's going on in September 2019 is the Peace deal literally blew up. The president said this is a bad deal. The Taliban's not acting in good faith and announced a canceling of the peace deal. And from there both the Taliban is trying to get back to the negotiating table and the embassy is rightly trying to negotiate a peace, a legitimate peace. But I think we were fed a bad deal in case nobody saw 2021. But the Taliban is specifically denying the presence of this group. They formally announce it on their website like these reports are false. This group isn't an Afghanistan group.

Stephanie Mast (37:46)

The weaker group.

Joshua Mast (37:47)

Possibly. Possibly, yeah. But I guess they called them Turkestani but this al Qaeda group which is a condition of the peace deal. So the Taliban's not dumb, like they fought us for 20 years. Right, right. So they have a strategic interest in this not being a thing. And so a colonel who is the action officer in the Pentagon testified in our board of inquiry in October. He said that six to false claimants came forward, they tested them for DNA and they were negative. So Glenn, why would six or eight people who are not relatives of this child come forward? And I think the answer is they were sent forward.

Stephanie Mast (38:23)

Correct.

Joshua Mast (38:25)

And so our concern at the time was that hey, this is. It could be someone who is being sent forward as a proxy of the Taliban. It could be someone who is just profiting off of somebody trolling through non U. S. Controlled area of Afghanistan saying want a baby? Because at the time there was pretty severe conditions in Afghanistan. It's getting to be the fall into the wintertime. And we're getting reports that at least in Kabul they were eating cats and dogs. They were selling their youngest children to pay for the rest of their family to make it through the winter. And so there was some significant economic conditions at that time.

Stephanie Mast (39:02)

When did John and Jane Doe come into the picture?

Joshua Mast (39:09)

So it really wasn't. It was John Doe's father. He was.

Stephanie Mast (39:14)

Now these are the people that this is where the real battle begins.

Joshua Mast (39:19)

Yes, and I would say at the outset of this is, I don't blame these particular Afghans. Everybody wants to come to America. You know, sure, we blame the Americans who know the truth and are covering this up. You know, they come from an environment where you're living a little more hand to mouth and you have to survive. And I have a lot of great Afghan friends that we've fought with and I respect. So this isn't about really Afghans, but it's about what the State Department did that was dangerous, like objectively dangerous. So here's how it fits in. We get told to stand, DoD gets told to stand down in December of 2019. There is a meeting, a critical meeting on December 31st between the embassy and the Afghan that we've been mentoring to basically have basic child safety procedures. He worked for a Ministry of labor, and so we've been basically training, advising, assisting them, that you do a DNA test if there's someone that comes forward and you vet people for terrorism, like not rocket science here. And they were very on board with that. And so they had a claimant come forward. And so they requested the embassy, who's the new lead, to do a DNA test to this person. But somehow the embassy reports to the Trump administration and their own agency that the Afghan DNA test, I think the white lie was it's not part of the Afghan process. And they've confirmed there's family members. And in reality, we spent two years to get this Afghan to America. He got here three days before our board of inquiry. As far as, like, you want to talk about the providence of God, but this guy said the only person in the world who could contradict what the embassy is saying got to America a couple days before, before we needed him to be here. And he said they asked for a DNA test and they denied it. This particular Afghan or embassy employee personally denied a DNA test. And so he said there was nothing else. Like they didn't have a photo id. It was like some guy saying, I'm family. And that's what the embassy forced them to go through with. And so this man ended up being a. His claim was a lie. Like, over the last three years, we can document.

Stephanie Mast (41:30)

We've documented that he claimed to be a farmer. Right.

Joshua Mast (41:33)

Well, so the person who claimed to be a relative, who she was ultimately turned over to, claimed to be related to a dead. A person who was killed during that mission. I believe that's a lie. I think we can document that. So he was just lying. That's why you have precautions in place to vet people.

Stephanie Mast (41:53)

And so Baby Sparrow is. Where is Baby Sparrow at this point?

Glenn Beck (42:01)

So at that time when they were told, basically, this is the new course of action and to stand down. What we learned at Joshua's board of inquiry is literally one of the generals, he had the entire, like, the medical staff footprint at Bagram. He sat them down and said, this is what's going to happen to her. Like, this is the course of action, this is the decision, and this is what we're going to do. And he ordered everybody. That's what the colonel testified. It was the most unprofessional dress down he's ever been a part of. He basically yelled at everybody and said, this is what we're doing. And so they turned her over with armed. What do you call, armed guards?

Joshua Mast (42:40)

Personal security detail.

Glenn Beck (42:41)

Personal security detail. And the reason why the personal security detail they were there was because they were concerned about a resistance among service members. So if this was family, if this was, like, for her best interest and she was going to be okay, why were they worried about resistance among young service members? Because ultimately everybody knew what her outcome was going to be and they knew it was wrong.

Joshua Mast (43:08)

Yeah. They flew a flag over Bagram in her memory because they thought she was dead because it was so dangerous. There was just no vetting at all. And what I think that sometimes powerful people don't realize is there's a lot of regular people out there that can show the homework on this stuff. And I just thought that. I don't think they ever thought they'd be held accountable for any of this stuff. And now, fortunately, for the last few years and some of the process we've gone through has been brutal, but we have the evidence now and we're excited about the opportunity to, I guess, show that.

Stephanie Mast (43:48)

So when did Sparrow and how did Sparrow get here?

Joshua Mast (43:53)

That's a miracle.

Glenn Beck (43:54)

That is a miracle. The one thing I'd like to add is the night that. Because we scrambled and we literally did everything we could to stop that turnover, because all we knew it was to a person that wished to remain anonymous. And we knew that they weren't DNA vetted and that they were likely terrorist affiliated. And so we did everything we could do to stop that from happening. And I remember, I'll never forget when you came in and you got the call, it was very late at night and he came in and he's like, she's gone. And I remember, I was just like, I felt like I was kicking the gut and I was just, like, so devastated because I thought Trump or somebody would come through and save the day and she would not be turned over like that. And I was heartbroken at that moment. But I'll never forget you said, and the room was dark and I just remember your voice. And you said, I don't know why, I have no reason to think this, but it's going to be okay. And I was like, and I was just accepted at that point because I had no words. And I was just like, okay. And so that brings us to how she got out.

Joshua Mast (44:53)

Two days before the peace deal signed, the US government, through the embassy's representations, turns her over to an unvetted, what's turned out to be a non relative terrorist affiliated person. Like the guy's got a Taliban flag on his WhatsApp profile. And so everything we'd feared, everything we, I mean, as a captain, my wife and I sues the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State. That's how convinced we were that this was objectively dangerous. I'm thinking my career's over. But I can't sit here and not do every legal guard.

Glenn Beck (45:25)

We were legal guardians, we had legal standing and we were her.

Joshua Mast (45:29)

Well, our government recognized our rights. She was recognized as our daughter by headquarters Marine Corps. I'm calling on the phone explaining what we're doing. We're talking to the White House Chief of Staff, we're talking to the Director of uscis. As far as for a crazy situation, we're doing it as buy the book as we can for a unique one off situation. And what I think it's very important for the listeners to understand is if all of the US intelligence was actually correct and the people that we sent our special operators to capture or kill were foreigners, all of this is a lie. Because if she really is who we thought she was the whole time, then all of this gloss is just smoke and mirrors. They had no reason to do what they did. And the only reason, the reason we don't know about the DNA is because these people now won't take a DNA test. And the State Department denied taking a DNA test before. And to me, if you think that there's a valid claimant, the first thing you do is a DNA test. It's the most biometrically enrolled society on earth.

Stephanie Mast (46:35)

So again, let me go back to John and Jane Doe. Who are these people?

Joshua Mast (46:41)

So John Doe is the son of this older man. Okay, so she was.

Stephanie Mast (46:46)

Do you know that's real?

Joshua Mast (46:47)

I believe that's real. Okay, so this older man gets her and there's a phenomenal human rights attorney named Kim Motley and she's got experience like dealing with like trafficked Children in Afghanistan. She finds her. That's a miracle in itself. But I'll gloss over it for time. This older man says, or we get some information that he's hired a young girl to take care of her. He's paying her a salary.

Glenn Beck (47:12)

A teenager.

Joshua Mast (47:13)

A teenager. That teenager is Jane doe. She's like 16, I think at the time. She's going to finishing up high school. But it's a war zone. We're told that it's a slum. It's in southern Afghanistan. It's so dangerous that the ICRC won't go there. And we immediately get reports that Sparrow starts shaking at night, in the day and her eyes are twitching. And so we were very concerned about her TBI because like in the military community especially, we're very aware like the long term ramifications getting blown up. And so we're like, we were even trying to get her taken back to Kandahar airfield or some of our other hospitals at the time. But then Covid happens and everything gets like shut down and you can't even go out on the street in Afghanistan. And all that craziness that ensued. And we were trying to. Kim was trying to get her brought up to be evaluated at a hospital in Kabul that had more capability.

Glenn Beck (48:07)

So 18 months passes by. The teenage girl gets married to the.

Joshua Mast (48:12)

Son, the son of the son. And so I think it's very important for people to understand. We only spoke to this guy directly six weeks before the fall of Afghanistan. 2021 in 2021. And Kim is an expert in Afghan culture and she's been operating there for a long time. And she's like, look, I think this is a real possibility to send her out because of her needs. But I can't get custody of a child without a way to get her out of Afghanistan. I can't have another child in my care. And so we were just creating a path to the United States for her before the Taliban took over. Because we were very aware that after that deadline, there's going to be a brutal civil war. And best case scenario, maybe there's a shared government, but that's not in it. What happened? So I talked to this guy on July 2021, first time I owe you. This is me. Here's who I am. Here's what I did in Afghanistan. We believe she's a foreign child. She was an orphan. We sought legal responsibility for under US Law. My interpreter uses the strongest words in Wali Masuli Sarprast. And my Afghan friends will probably make fun of me. Because I probably butchered those.

Stephanie Mast (49:24)

But what does it mean?

Joshua Mast (49:25)

It means Guardian, responsible 1. The strongest legal term for a non parent being responsible because they don't have adopted parents.

Glenn Beck (49:32)

She's an adopted parent, we would say.

Joshua Mast (49:34)

An adopted parent in the state, but they don't have a similar legal concept there. And so he's using the strongest terms. And this guy, I mean honestly what he first wanted was a visa. Like, hey, can you get me a visa for me and my brother in law? Everybody wants to go to America. I don't even blame them. But no, there's no, like no one could predict the evacuation. I mean that was a historic event. So we're sitting here saying she has everything she needs to fly out. We're legally responsible for send her before the Taliban take over. And so this guy, this is what he tells me. He's like, I'm like, how's she doing? There's a battle going on in southern Afghanistan, there's a campaign, there's artillery rounds going off near them, there's people getting shot around them. He's worried about his teenage wife who's about eight months pregnant and about the artillery rounds near their house hurting their unborn child. This guy's like, in a bad way. And he says he's bringing tears to his eyes how Sparrow's condition is. And you know, and so as this is all happening, I asked like, where is she? Like, that's a pretty good question. Like in a war zone. And he's like, oh, she doesn't live with me or my family or my dad. She lives with this other family and they become like parents to her. And so like that's what's so hilarious about. Not hilarious. It would be funny if it wasn't tragic. So tragic.

Stephanie Mast (50:53)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joshua Mast (50:54)

Is that. And this guy tells me she doesn't even live with him. That's the first thing. Well, one of the first things he says to me, he tells me his father is responsible to the Taliban for her. And then in fact he's like, I think she should go live with you. That's so kind, that type of thing. And he's like, I have to ask my dad. He's the responsible one and he has to ask the Taliban. So during the middle of the war, his dad travels about 100 miles from where they live in southern Afghanistan to where she was picked up. And they talked to that Taliban commander who was responsible for those camps of whether they can send her to be evacuated because it had taken them a couple weeks. And of course the Taliban says no, not a big surprise. And so he comes back and says, the Taliban said no, they'll kill us if we disobey them. Sorry. Basically. And so as we're developing, as this situation is developing, there's thousands of IDPs getting to place by the battles. They're all centering on Kabul. Like, we all know the history now. It's August 16th when this guy comes back to me. The evacuation just started and I had the privilege of helping a friend of mine with one of his interpreters outside the wall. And he was at the Naval War College and didn't actually have access to a lot of our systems. And I was at a special unit where we could directly call the airport. And so we got this one guy out. I saw it on Facebook, hey, send me that. I routed the request ad hoc. He gets out and that hits the news. I wrote a book about it. And so he gets. My friend who's another Marine officer, gets flooded with requests to help other terps. And so we get sucked into all the people Mercury run funded. It was totally ad hoc, totally heroic. How these Americans pulled together like Consilium no one left behind. Pineapple Express, Team America. I mean, it was incredible. But as that's happening, I'm like, disobey the Taliban, bring her to U.S. forces. She's viewed as a U.S. person because of her U.S. identity. We sent them her military ID to identify her, right? At the same time, the interpreter that I'm using to speak Pashto to this man, he's like, sir, my sister, she's 15, she's in the Northern alliance areas. They've just passed an edict saying that they have to marry them off to their fighters. Can you help us get her out? And so I'm like, this is not my expertise. It's all ad hoc, just like every other service member at the time. And so I'm like, okay, man, we'll try, but it's super dangerous. Are you willing to risk their lives traveling 180 miles? He's like, yes, sir. It's better than being left to marry the Taliban and take him back to Pakistan. So we move his 15 year old sister, his I think 8 year old brother at the time, and his teenage brother, all three of them. And we rent an Airbnb online in Kabul, Afghanistan during the evacuation as a safe house. I get word that they're bringing Sparrow from southern Afghanistan. We move them 280 miles through Taliban checkpoints and all that stuff in the middle of war right around August 22nd or 3rd. As soon as I get word they're moving that they're disobeying the Taliban, I go to my colonel. I'm standing on his desk. Sir, I got a crazy story for you. The State Department dumped our child two years ago. We've been working to get her out. We have all the paperwork here. It is, permission to fly emergency leave into Kabul, Afghanistan. And my colonel is crazy enough and a great enough warrior. He's like, that's what I'd do if I was a parent. Permission granted. And so I got a ticket and I was on my way before I got shut down by centcom. They're like, no way. We're not letting people in on emergency leave. But we ended up. It was such a unique experience because we were able to go to Ramstein and find her because they got out.

Glenn Beck (54:43)

I mean, he's glossing as, you know, like that period of time. It was just what he was doing was, I mean, as a wife, I will say heroic because it was around the clock. There was a photo I took of him because he couldn't even take a shower without his phone just going off. And he jumped out of the shower and he was sitting on the floor wrapped up in a towel. And I think at the time you were on the phone with the general and I just thought it was hilarious that here he is on the phone with the general, can't even get a shower. But it was just, it was that high tempo.

Stephanie Mast (55:10)

I think it is one of the most incredible points of a 20 year war. I mean, it was insane. And especially since we were working against, in some ways, our own State Department. It was really bad. But I'll save that for some other time.

Glenn Beck (55:27)

So it ended up being like, he said that we realized the plan quickly changed from him going, he was literally, you were prepared. And I didn't know this after the fact that you wrote a video in case you died in the process of trying, because he was fully prepared to pull them over the wall. That was his plan. I didn't realize at the time that was probably a good thing. But we end up, he's like. Because we didn't know where in the world they were going to go. There was no plan. It was just like they were getting on a plane and then it was just a guessing game as to where they were going to go. So at the last minute, I had a nine month old baby at the time and I gave my baby to my sister. And we're like, we're her adoptive parents. We've Got to go.

Joshua Mast (56:06)

We have all the original documents.

Glenn Beck (56:07)

We have all of her documents, everything to ensure that she comes to the United States, not some other country.

Joshua Mast (56:13)

Well, and what was so amazing, Glennon, is this same little girl that got carried off an objective by a special mission unit in 2019. It happened again in the evacuation because my colonel got her put on JSOC's targeting list and a Special forces squadron operating out of Hkiya went behind Taliban lines and grabbed her and my three interpreter's kids and these two Pashtuns. She was eight months pregnant. So we were very concerned of having four kids and a pregnant lady getting through these crowds. Right. And so like to say that that was like a lightning bolt again.

Stephanie Mast (56:44)

No, that was a miracle.

Joshua Mast (56:45)

It was a miracle.

Stephanie Mast (56:46)

That was a miracle.

Joshua Mast (56:47)

And so we were over the moon about it.

Stephanie Mast (56:51)

So the 18 year old and the. And the pregnant mom, if you will, the one that were, that were and were not taking care of baby Sparrow, they're with you. They're coming to the United States because that way they can help.

Joshua Mast (57:14)

So it was solely to get them away from the Taliban.

Stephanie Mast (57:16)

Okay, okay.

Joshua Mast (57:17)

Because if we left them behind, they would get hurt.

Stephanie Mast (57:19)

Okay. So they get on the plane. There's a problem on the plane, if I'm not mistaken, where John and Jane are not happy with each other or something.

Joshua Mast (57:32)

So that was actually over a couple day period at Ramstein. That was the first time that we realized that there was something going on between them. Because what John Doe told me a couple times, like, hey, she's attached to the baby, but when she has her baby, it'll be fine, it'll be good. And then what she was saying when we had everything arranged and it wasn't a guarantee, go to America type situation. Right. There's 80,000 people going all over the world. And so we're advocating like saying, hey, you have to send. These people helped us. They disobeyed the Taliban, you have to send them to America. And so we had successfully arranged that. And once that happened, it became a. Well, he promised me that if I came, I didn't want to come, but he said if I come, I wouldn't have to let her or go with you. And so that was the first time I realized there was any disagreement at all. And I don't know what this guy. I don't know if they have the same, culturally the same page as spouses. Right. Because typically in my training experience, the Afghan men leave their home and they don't really care what their wife says. And so it was a unique dynamic. A unique dynamic.

Stephanie Mast (58:37)

And when do you find out he's on a watch list?

Joshua Mast (58:40)

Oh, gosh. Yeah. I'll probably get yelled at for that. So this is what happened. We get to these states about 10 hours before their official flight comes in, like that. The president had commandeered that. They had basically commercial fleet. So they're pouring into the country. They're doing the best. Our people are vetting them as best they can. Right. There's obviously been some failures with that. So we get to Dulles, and we have all the documents, right? All of her documents. So I go back there. It takes like, seven hours to process in, and it's crammed full of people the whole time. And at the very end, at like, I don't know, one in the morning, they're like, oh, you're all done processing. You need to take a COVID test. I'm like, COVID test. Okay, let's go take a COVID test. And people have got tuberculosis, but let's go get Covid tested. And they take about 20 military age men, and they put us in, and you and me, yeah. Cause I'm this my guy. And they drive us out into the middle of Dulles Airport, and there's this huge hangar, almost like a Bond movie, like, where like a prototype plane is gonna be revealed. And there's like 500 beds, and it's the only place that has not been crammed full of people this whole time. And there's like, uniform customs and border patrol guys with, like, plate carriers and ARs. And I'm like, this doesn't look like a Covid place.

Stephanie Mast (60:00)

Right.

Joshua Mast (60:01)

And so I'm trying to figure out what's going on. And so then this uniformed customs and border patrol agent comes in. Like, what were you doing in 2014? What are you doing going at my guy? And I'm like, I told you, I talked to this guy five weeks before. And so what concerned me is he was in this detention facility, and then he's sitting there talking to another man in Pashto. And most of our allies were like, dari speakers. There's some Pashtuns, but predominantly the Pashtuns are Taliban. And so he had not really talked to anybody in four or five days that I've been around this guy, and he's like, chatting away, and I'm like, who's his friend? To somebody who spoke English. And they're like, oh, this guy's from his home village. They know each other. And then when I find out about 10 minutes later, I went up to the border patrol agent. I'm like, hey, man, what are we doing here? He's like, oh, this is the inconclusives where people flagged for a match on the terror watch list, and we're vetting them. And I'm like, holy cow, right? Because I have a child from a capture or kill mission of Al Qaeda. I've got a dad who went to the Taliban shadow governor. And I forgot to mention, this guy tells my terp before he comes to American lines, like, hey, I have a lot of militants in my phone. Will this be a problem when I come to American lines?

Glenn Beck (61:10)

Don't tell Joshua, though.

Joshua Mast (61:12)

And he's like, don't tell Joshua. And I'm like, task force is already tracking this guy. So, no, it didn't make a difference because we know where you are. And that actually was corroborated at my board of inquiry. We had someone come from JSOC and testify. Yep. We knew this guy had dirt. And so I had some red flags going on.

Glenn Beck (61:26)

Yeah, you sent me a video.

Joshua Mast (61:27)

I have a video of it.

Glenn Beck (61:28)

Because I was sitting there at dolos waiting for him because I thought, same thing. She's like, where are we for the COVID test? I'm like, it's wee hours of the morning. Like, where are you? And he sends me a video. He's like, you're never gonna believe where I am. And I'm like, get out of there. You don't belong in there. And, yeah, that was the first time any of this, like, we realized.

Joshua Mast (61:45)

And so again, kind of thinking that facts matter, and, like, you should report stuff like this.

Stephanie Mast (61:49)

See something, say something.

Joshua Mast (61:50)

So I immediately reported to my chain of command through our NCS liaison, and it kind of like nothing happened. And obviously, that is when we immediately requested, they're going to get vetted. They're probably going to get deported. We should probably. Now is a good time to separate her. And my interpreter's kids also came with that. So it took them a couple days to get their act together and actually do that. But I think it makes a lot more sense to the American people how this conflict started with they know the guy flags and the context behind that. And so that really was the turning point where we're like, hey, maybe I was projecting some compassion I had for all these allies that went to war with us. And maybe I should have been a little more cautious at the outset, because, to be honest, we faced a decision point in the evacuation where my colonel's like, hey, you're Gonna probably have to choose between these Afghans and your little girl, because the assets we're using to get them don't give a crap about Afghans, and they'll probably just stick a gun in their face and take her. And not like, they're not gonna waste their res. These random people. And I literally had to advocate to take all of them.

Glenn Beck (62:55)

You delayed it for 24 hours?

Joshua Mast (62:56)

Yeah. We actually had a team that was funded by the Mercury One funds, volunteers to go get them all. They had 9,000 ahead or whatever for the private aircraft set to go. And I think they had an incident at Northgate that night, and they canceled all the volunteers going out. And that's when my colonel got them picked up by a national ministry force unit. And so I guess the peace of mind knowing that there was Americans who were volunteering to go behind lines when it sounded like no one else was doing. Oh, my gosh.

Stephanie Mast (63:26)

Yeah.

Glenn Beck (63:27)

But I would touch on it in hindsight, even though it was devastating losing her, for her not coming home when she was supposed to. In 2019. We had a crib. We had everything ready. We were ready to go. Yeah.

Joshua Mast (63:40)

We thought she'd be a handicapped child.

Glenn Beck (63:41)

We were anticipating taking in a baby with special needs, and we were ready as much as we could be. And then for that to be delayed for that period of time. But as a result, because of the fall and because of, honestly, how everything providentially was woven together the way it was. How many people, personally.

Joshua Mast (64:00)

Let me rephrase that. So I want people to understand. We were so devastated when she got turned over, and we couldn't understand why. Why would that happen? But when this historic event kicks off and you're getting texts and calls from people and you're able to get real people moved inside to safety and a new life, I mean, especially from like 8,000 miles away, it's so weird. You're so far from it, but you're changing lives. And all these volunteers are doing that too. It was very clear that that was a larger purpose. We had a vision to save this one child just because we were in a place to do it. But there was a bigger plan that ended up. Her life, her existence, saved dozens and dozens of American interpreters, interpreters that worked with us and their families. And I'll tell you one story for your audience. There was one group. They had Australian visas. Glenn. I worked with one Australian ever in Afghanistan. And I call this man, as I'm dangerously driving and texting all the way up to D.C. to fly to Afghanistan that's on my first attempt to. I'm like, hazer, remember me? Like, I'm at marsoc. I'm working with these. I'm working, volunteering to vet all these groups. Do you know anybody running the Australian response to the Kabul evacuation? And he goes, oh, my brother is running the Australian Army's response in Doha. Here's his number. And so I then called, I call Australia, I called Doha while dangerously driving to D.C. and they're like, we have bad comms right now. We can't reach them. We'll send an email. And I've got like 14 people in a ditch of water at 2 in the morning outside Abbey Gate. And they got like a two month old and like a 60 year old like in a range of people here. And they're Hazaras, they're Shia Muslims. They're both ethnically and religiously persecuted by the Taliban. And the matriarch of the family is an advocate for women's rights. Like, they're dead.

Stephanie Mast (65:57)

They're dead.

Joshua Mast (65:58)

They're so dead. And so I'm like, you see any Americans around? Because we were using a signal on a phone, right, like everybody else was doing. And my guy wasn't at the gate at that time and he wasn't able to get the Marines to. So she hands the phone to American and I hear this female voice, like, hello? Like, super weirded out. And I'm like, hey, my name's Major Mast. I've been vetting these people. They have Australian visas. Are there any Australians? And she's like, sir, the Australians aren't doing 24 hour ops right now. They don't come on until 6 and it's 2 in the morning. And I'm like, she goes, what do you want me to do? I want you to pull these people in and sit them down and wait for Australians come. So she hands me off to her captain. I do the same spiel. And this is what he says to me. He's like, sir, he goes, I'm looking at 15,000 people and I'm playing God on who gets out. So what do you want me to do? And I was like, I want you to pull these people in and sit them down and wait for Australians to come. Because wouldn't it be awful if these people die when they have visas to Australia? And we were in the air to Ramstein when the Abbey Gate happened. And you know, in the moment you have so many groups you're working and we would name them very like 14 packs or passengers. 14 packs. And the Gate. I was like, what gate was that? You know, because I talked to that girl. She was a Marine. And, you know, I'll never forget sitting in the USO watching them pull all the bodies off the plane at Ramstein because they were taking him to lawnshield the wounded, and wondering, like, did that girl that just helped these people die doing that?

Glenn Beck (67:35)

And it was. It was her. And when I was in the car, when you were on the phone with him on the ground, and it was that moment, it was just so historic that he's sitting there talking to someone on the ground, pulling this grave through. For whatever reason. I had the instinct, I pull up my. I didn't want him to see me. I pull up my phone and I record. And so I actually recorded that conversation, not knowing any of that was going to happen, but recorded that conversation that he had with that Marine on the ground and that pulled those 14 people through as a result.

Stephanie Mast (68:08)

Have you met her parents yet?

Joshua Mast (68:09)

No. No, I have not.

Stephanie Mast (68:12)

Would you like to meet them? I know them.

Glenn Beck (68:14)

I would love to, but we've always. I mean, he can't. I mean, I've known him ever since he was a teenager, and he never cried. I could count on one hand how many times he cried. But since this whole situation, especially Abby Gate, he can't. He can never talk about it without crying because you feel it so deeply. And what we saw there and the evacuation, I remember calling back home to family, and I was like, is this on the news? And they're like, no. And at the time, there was one Getty photographer and one CNN reporter, and it was historic. And, like, I would echo what Josh was saying, what the service members and the uso, what they were doing on the ground during the evacuation.

Stephanie Mast (68:49)

Remarkable.

Glenn Beck (68:50)

It was heroic.

Stephanie Mast (68:52)

And on the flip side, what the State Department was doing on the ground at the same place was the greatest evil I've ever seen.

Joshua Mast (69:02)

Absolutely. I talked to my, I guess, friends that I'd worked with in the past that were the sjs on the ground there, and he's telling me things like, you would not believe what we just went through. I'm a major in the Marine Corps, I'm a Judge Advocate, and I just cleared an airport and ran concertina wire around it, and we're probably going to get overrun again. Things are not going well. And just what they went. He said it's the worst thing he'd seen in five deployments in the gwat.

Stephanie Mast (69:29)

Final segment in just a second. First, let me talk to you about Mercury Real Estate. Anytime, in life you have to make big changes. It's hard, especially true when you're planning to buy or sell a home. It's really complex. My wife and I are talking about selling our home again and oh my gosh, I hate this so much. We're thinking about selling because the kids have moved out and we don't need all that space. But you have to find a real estate agent, right? You gotta find a good one. Well, I happen to know some good ones. You don't want the ordinary. You want the very best. Real estate agents agent. So I started a company a few years ago that helps people find the right real estate agents. Realestate agentsitrust.com helps pairs you with the top selling real estate agent in your area. Somebody who knows the best practices. Somebody who understands the crazy housing market. Somebody who's a team leader and a closer. Somebody that you can trust. So if you're thinking about buying or selling a home or both, please get in touch with them. I think you will see what I mean. A real estate agent you can trust. It's real estate agentsitrust.com realestate agentsitrust.com in today's crazy world, defending yourself might leave you behind bars while the criminal walks free. That's why over 850,000Americans trust the USCCA to prepare them for every aspect of a self defense incident. Starting with knowing how to deal with the police. Text safe to 87222 right now to get our most popular guy. Six things you didn't know would happen when the police arrive absolutely free. Don't risk your freedom and your future. Text S a f e to 87222 now. Okay, so let's get back to Sparrow. Okay, you're coming over here in the United States. How long is she with you guys? Because the, the John Doe, he's kept out, right? Or does he get in?

Joshua Mast (71:27)

No. So this is what they tell me. He's held for about 24 hours. And then a border parole agent says hey man, this is a really bad dude. But he brought your daughter to U.S. forces and your organization got him out of Afghanistan. So we let him through. And I'm like, whoa, no. That's when I reported it up the chain. And my command was like, get your daughter and get back here. Because I've been gone for like a week working. So that's what we did. We just did what we were told. And we were. I guess so.

Glenn Beck (71:58)

I mean short version, they're here in the United States and we've had Sparrow in our custody since what, 20, 21?

Joshua Mast (72:08)

Like, yeah, almost three and a half years going on, you know, and did.

Glenn Beck (72:11)

And I mean, and we started exactly what we were going to do back in 2019 and just went through. And same doctor, same doctor went through every medical appointment that was recommended, everything that we could possibly do. And to see her, when we did get her finally, she wasn't the same baby as she was in the hospital. She had in the hospital with all the service members, took a lot of pictures of her. And she had these big brown eyes and big smile, just happy baby just would smile with her whole body. And when we saw her, when I saw her for the first time, I actually wondered if it was the same child because her face was closed off and she was very fearful and scared. She would hardly look up. And I mean, just the fear and trauma on her face was just. I've never seen that in a child before. And it wasn't until I saw, like she had a dress on. I saw the scar on her. Like, she has a very distinct scar on her leg. And I was like, that's her. And I just. I could not believe it. But, you know, when she came home, I mean, she had lice, parasites, just emotional trauma, just everything. So it was kind of like the peeling back layers of an onion. Just loving on her and pouring into her as much as we possibly can.

Stephanie Mast (73:22)

Have you seen that little girl again?

Glenn Beck (73:25)

Very much so. So now today she looks like her baby photos. It's like you can see it's the same person. Big eyes, just very expressive. And it's like, there, there she is. Like, that's the true her. But what she endured during that time. There's one story that just. I mean, our life, we are so blessed here in the States not to know the degree of violence and just that other parts of the world have. I was carrying her out to the car. We were picking up our boys from school, and there was a community that was being built next to us. And they were roofing and they were going pop, pop, pop, pop, pop with a nail gun. And I had her on my hip. And when she heard the sound of the nail gun, she went and she looked at me. And the look on her eyes, her eyes were fear, like, are we gonna run? Is it danger? And she was looking to me to see how I was gonna respond. And when I. And I. And I saw that and I was just like. It broke my heart like, that she knew that. That she has obviously been exposed to that. And then just you know, like any other parent would just be like, it's okay, and explained it and, uh, oh, who fell down and move on. But she, she's amazingly resilient and come so far.

Stephanie Mast (74:42)

So I'm a dad of an adopted child and we adopted in Texas, which was a very good thing because Texas adoption laws are so very clear. That's your child.

Glenn Beck (74:58)

So is Virginia, actually.

Stephanie Mast (74:59)

Yeah, but it's not working out that way for you.

Glenn Beck (75:02)

No, it's not.

Stephanie Mast (75:03)

When you sign adoption papers. I know. I think it was two years, the mom could come back and say, I've changed my mind. And in Texas that's hard, but still able at the two year point. I know what my wife was like and what I felt like at the two year point, worrying because two years in, that's not my child, that's my child. You know what I mean? Rafe is my son at that point. How did this happen to where Virginia comes in and says, oh, forget that adoption thing.

Joshua Mast (75:47)

So I think that first of all, we have some restrictions on commenting on the state court cases, so I can't answer all the questions relating to that.

Stephanie Mast (75:57)

Here's what I want to know. How did you feel and how did you hear that this might be over?

Glenn Beck (76:08)

Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is the day the FBI showed up at the door. And as a mom, literally bringing my kids in through the door from school. Keys were still in the lock. And I get a knock at the door and there were two agents there. I had a baby. I went to my oldest son. I was like, take him in the room and watch him. I've got to talk to some people outside. And my son wanted to play outside. He's like, I don't want to do that. I was like, honey, the FBI is here and I need to go do this. And he's like, they're real. Like, almost like it was the Avengers or something. And that was the first moment where. And it was actually they were there because of the terrorists. And like, like there was a whole. Like it was them trying to sort through what Joshua had reported. But at that time, that was the first. Like, that was when it started to change of like, oh, there's going to be conflict. And that was heartbreaking and brought fear, obviously, natural fear, because it's not about us, it's about her. Absolutely. And so the whole time, I mean, when she was initially turned over, what I wrestled with for the longest time is that she could go through her whole life in Afghanistan with a completely different identity and never Know that she had another name and that she wasn't anonymous, that she was loved by hundreds and prayed for by hundreds of people. So for her to be at stake again after all of this, blood, sweat, tears, prayer, everything that we've invested for that to be up for grabs again is just the natural instinct is fear, protection, just wanting to do everything you can to keep one person safe and just wonder why people can't see the facts. Like we said, we're open books. Sure. You want the facts. It's all here.

Stephanie Mast (78:02)

So tell me this went back to Virginia court and they overturned the adoption. Right.

Joshua Mast (78:10)

So I'm nervous about getting into too much with it.

Stephanie Mast (78:13)

Don't say anything.

Joshua Mast (78:14)

You're not the legal stuff. But I guess, I guess what would be important for folks to know is if someone, you're an adoptive parent, if someone came along and said, we're related to you and we're going to sue you to get them back, what's the first thing you'd ask them?

Stephanie Mast (78:28)

DNA.

Joshua Mast (78:29)

DNA. That's the first thing we did. And then kind of hemmed and haw and the story changed about how they were biologically related to them. And that just kind of backed them into a corner of this is a lie. I. I honestly think that big picture, these people don't have authority over her. If she went back to their custody. It's really.

Stephanie Mast (78:50)

We're talking Jane and John.

Joshua Mast (78:52)

Yes. They don't have legal authority. They told the FBI that we finally got their statements where they said, oh, her two uncles are the authority for her life. I don't have the authority to let her go to America. But we have. Now I'm going to focus on the government's actions. We have the Department of Justice filing parroting what these mega law firms have been representing them, saying based on information they have that is directly contradictory to what the DOJ has filed in court. So to the FBI, they said, we're not in charge, but the DOJ is filing saying they are. How is that possible? How do you have statements that you haven't disclosed to the courts in the United States? You can't have.

Stephanie Mast (79:33)

Is it true? It's Hunter Biden's law office, I believe.

Joshua Mast (79:38)

One of the firms. There's been several law firms that have. Representative. I believe it was the same one that represented the president's son.

Stephanie Mast (79:45)

Great. So now this is at the Virginia Supreme Court.

Joshua Mast (79:50)

Yes. So next week we have oral argument in front of the Virginia Supreme Court and they make a decision. But our biggest concern is that there has been a Successful effort from the very same bureaucrats that tried to shut us down in 2019 about telling the truth. I mean, essentially, looking back, we were whistleblowers. This is like not in accordance with everything we know and we're right. And I think they're very concerned about that getting out. And that's why I've had my military orders change about what we can talk about. We've experienced over classification of information, like clearly unclassified documents marked secret, no foreign. We've had federal agencies telling us what we can and can't talk about. And honestly, absolute abuse of power to shut down the evidence.

Stephanie Mast (80:41)

I was in a court case where it was against the government and documents were a question. If you're fighting the United States government, they can classify, they can redact, they control everything. There is no way to win against the United States government if they have the will to make sure that that truth never comes out.

Glenn Beck (81:13)

Well, and what was amazing is that early on there was a. Well, we're impartial. We're not going to tip our fingers on the scale of justice. But what we have experienced is the exact opposite. They very much have the federal government. They have.

Stephanie Mast (81:29)

So is there any difference between, I mean, the Biden administration and the Trump administration? Is his people back on this? Do you have?

Joshua Mast (81:37)

So I would say that we're hopeful that that'll be the case, but there's so much they're correcting that was just broken in our system before. Correct for us, it's an issue of priority. I think that if an objective person looks. I guess. Let me caveat that with one more thing. We went through a board of inquiry and you said you can't fight the government. That's true. Unless you have a little bit of due process, then they have to give you stuff and it's harder to hide things. And so they ran our family through a recycled allegations, exactly what these mega law firms, we defeated them in court, proved were false. And so we went through that process and it was brutal. But you know what happened? They had to give you the evidence. And so now it's consolidated in one place and there's classified. All of the classified information that I had on deployment is now in one place. And in all of the unclass, we had 14 gigabytes of data that we never had before. And so although that was a brutal process, that was one way you can fight.

Stephanie Mast (82:35)

So what happens to Sparrow? Should it go wrong in Virginia?

Joshua Mast (82:42)

Well, we've explained it as a Taliban Elian Gonzales situation.

Stephanie Mast (82:47)

That's the first thing that came to my mind when I heard the story.

Joshua Mast (82:49)

Yeah, these are not relatives. They probably knew they weren't from day one. They were probably sent forward by the Taliban shadow governor to collect her from the Americans. And so they can't go back without her. This guy's told me personally, yeah, we want to go back. Everyone wants to come to America for the money, but everybody loves home. I don't judge people for that. But this is really. The Taliban is going to decide her future. This guy, his entire family is under their sway. If he says, if they're like, hey, I'm going to kill your family if you don't come back with a little girl, they put us. The Taliban denounced us on their social media. They've called you out by name. Yeah, we've had the state.

Stephanie Mast (83:29)

They called you guys out by name.

Glenn Beck (83:30)

Yes.

Joshua Mast (83:30)

Yeah. On their website. Little talking heads saying, you should make a T shirt. Absolutely. My buddies were like, how'd you do that? I've been trying to get that for years. It was kind of a joke. But what's more concerning is the State Department has filed affidavits against our family, basically insinuating the Taliban has asked them to do this. The Taliban doesn't like this, and it's hard to negotiate with them. I'm really sorry that my child is inconvenient for you, negotiating with the terrorist organization that you're funding, but I don't care. Get out of here. What? U.S. agency files to void someone's parental rights because the Taliban asked them to. And then I get the whole, we're asking you not to talk about this, right? Sure, sure. I'm not gonna talk about this. Like, the American people should read some of these affidavits.

Glenn Beck (84:14)

Well, and I mean, on a personal note, to an extent, they did do a good job in silencing us. And the reason why we haven't gone out guns blazing before is because we're trying to protect her and our family. Like, just parental instincts kick in.

Stephanie Mast (84:31)

I know.

Glenn Beck (84:31)

And to answer your question, what would happen to her? It would devastate her. She's five and a half.

Joshua Mast (84:37)

No idea who these folks are.

Glenn Beck (84:38)

She has no idea who they are. We are her family.

Joshua Mast (84:41)

Her brothers are her brothers.

Glenn Beck (84:42)

Her brothers are her brothers. And her life. And the freedom Taliban. Well, and women like the freedom. She has that now. She. I mean, it took a while for her to lose stuff, but, like, she enjoys that now. It would be absolutely devastating to her.

Joshua Mast (84:58)

And I want to add one thing in this process. You know, these Mega firms don't care who gets hurt. Right. It's a winning at all costs. And they have gotten a letter writing campaign going. Not just the megafirm, some other related organizations that support that type of thing, but They've wrote over 7,000 letters to Congress and in this they're talking about supporting their narrative, holding major masks accountable and insinuating that our Rangers who bled doing what we tasked them to do to go rid the world of these terrorists, they're calling them war criminals and they killed an innocent farmer. And honestly that just burns.

Stephanie Mast (85:31)

You can say that's the part that was classified. They could get away with saying that.

Joshua Mast (85:37)

For a while, right? No. These Rangers came and testified in a public proceeding. Right. It was sealed from as far as it's a public record now, so it's a matter of record. And then that was all placed into our board of inquiry. And so that is a public record available for FOIA and Privacy Act. So now you can go read their 200 page testimony.

Stephanie Mast (85:58)

But before.

Joshua Mast (85:59)

Correct.

Stephanie Mast (86:00)

That was hidden so you couldn't defend.

Joshua Mast (86:03)

Correct. And so what we want is we think these guys own the, they're under non disclosure agreements because of the unit they're serving in. So when your guys can't defend their own actions, who should do that? Well, I think it should be the SecDef. I think they should come out and release everything. If these folks want to attack our veterans and say that they committed war crimes and we have video of them engaging in hand to hand combat and grenades and, and shooting people at point blank range and having guys wounded and pulled off on stretchers off the objective paralyzed. Release that stuff and defend these men. They should be at the White House getting awards, not getting called war criminals by lesser men than themselves.

Stephanie Mast (86:51)

What's next?

Joshua Mast (86:53)

We don't know.

Glenn Beck (86:54)

No story's yet to be told.

Joshua Mast (86:57)

We have hope that there's a lot of folks, when they actually hear the truth, truth that have jumped on and tried to get it to decision makers. We're hoping that her life again is prioritized by the administration. They did it the first time and honestly, the only reason she didn't come back.

Stephanie Mast (87:10)

This is one of the most disturbing things of our time. We're a republic. We have a constitutional constitution, we have a Bill of rights, we have 200 years of law behind us and it feels like we have to go to the Avengers, we have to go to Donald Trump or someone of his team to defend our basic rights. And it really bothers me. It really bothers me. That's not the president's job, but it is, because the whole system is so corrupt.

Joshua Mast (87:52)

It really is. And what it's become is bureaucrats will say whatever the law, they'll say that the law is whatever they want it to be for that particular instance, to get whatever outcome they want. And it doesn't matter if it's true or just or right. And that's really hard for someone who, like, I really mean it when I swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. As a prosecutor, I would not even dream of prosecuting someone that wasn't. I didn't believe violated the law. And then you would try to pursue an appropriate punishment for that. I was a government hack. And seeing that system weaponize and abuse the way we've gotten to do that firsthand, it's been incredible. But on the flip side, it's so encouraging to see progress in those departments. And I think the louder people squeal in resistance to that progress. You're probably on target. Keep up the good work.

Stephanie Mast (88:41)

So New York Times magazine did a story. How did this man think he had a right to adopt the baby this year? Adopt this baby. Army Rangers killed her parents. A Marine is raising her in America, but her Afghan family says she was taken under false pretenses. Wow.

Joshua Mast (88:59)

Yeah. And there's a lot of fallacies with that. First of all, they're not her Afghan family, and they never were. And they probably knew that from day one. Like, that's unfortunate reality. And I don't know what their why is, but it's just not true. So what do you want me to do with that? When this guy flags on the watch list and we're legally obligated to take care of our child and told him that from day one, what do you want me to do? What would you do? If you're like, oh, this guy flagged after all of that context, you would immediately exercise what Care for her. Which is what we did. And that was the plan the entire time. In fact, what I think was most telling was, was every single person who had firsthand knowledge of this backed us up. The FBI interviewed all these people. And so from day one, they're like, oh, yeah, they knew. They just.

Glenn Beck (89:50)

And I would say they have done. The media, they've done a good job at painting a narrative that's not true of the story.

Stephanie Mast (90:00)

They have no record of that, but.

Glenn Beck (90:03)

They'Ve made it about him or us. Like, we are just off.

Stephanie Mast (90:07)

It's about her.

Glenn Beck (90:08)

Well, it's about her, but we're one of Many people that have cared for her, yes. We are her adoptive parents, and we have advocated for her, but we represent a lot of people that do that. So it's not just like, who do they think they are? This is many people that have stepped forward to protect her.

Joshua Mast (90:28)

Yeah. And the Ranger who recovered her off the battlefield, he said something that struck me. He said, they asked him, why? Do you remember that night? And he said, it's because it's the first time I could put a face to evil. And he was talking about her biological mother. We're talking about 20 years of war, pretty much culminating in the evacuation of Afghanistan. To tell you how encouraging it is to them, it's like their why I helped that person. And when they found out that she's safe and home in America, they were over the moon. They're like, I always wondered, what happened to that baby?

Stephanie Mast (91:08)

What can we do to help?

Joshua Mast (91:11)

Well, we appreciate your prayers, first of all, because she's been preserved time and time again. And so we're confident, seeing that providential hand, that that will continue to be the case. You can advocate, Call your congressman, call the White House, ask the President to change US Policy, because really, all we need is the truth to out and lift your thumb off the scale there. Department of Justice.

Stephanie Mast (91:36)

What policy needs to change.

Joshua Mast (91:38)

So the United States air quotes, some bureaucrat in the DOJ has filed parroting these claims. And so I really think they need some adult supervision and to go pull this class.

Stephanie Mast (91:51)

You talked with Pam Bondi?

Joshua Mast (91:54)

Not directly. We have had a whistleblower complaint formally routed. We routed it to the president via Congress, and we've had several congressmen sign onto that and send it to the SecDef, Sec, State, and the AG's office. And my understanding is the Department of Justice has reached out to State and DOD and asked them if they want to continue to stand beside the Biden administration's attack on our adoption.

Stephanie Mast (92:21)

The DOJ has done that.

Joshua Mast (92:23)

Yeah, because they're basically, they're the lawyer for the other federal agencies. Right. So they're like, hey, you guys want to keep doing this? And so we would ask in the name of justice and all that's good and right to stop lying for these mega law firms and release everything. I asked them to declassify all of this three years ago. I've asked repeatedly and just gotten shut down, denied like witnesses, denied documents, denied like nothing. They want you to in the dark and gagged as they're beating you. And all I need is the truth to come out. That's all she needs. But really, it's not. Like Sephi said, it's not about us. She's not chattel. It's not between us and them. It's what is in the best interest of this real five and a half little girl that went through so many terrible things. She deserves what's in her best interest. And what the previous administration's DOJ has done is tried to preempt even considering that question. And I can tell you as a fact, there's like 8% of the information available to the courts to make this decision. And so I really think the United States owes a duty of candidate to the course of the United States, and they need to release all of this. You can't omit key facts, critical evidence, and pretend like this is justice for this little girl.

Stephanie Mast (93:46)

When you find out about the case. I don't need a camera there, but I would love to meet Sparrow sometime to celebrate. And if it goes the other way, I don't know what I would do as a dad. I know what I'd want to do as a dad, but I don't know what I would actually do as a dad. But your journey doesn't stop in Virginia, perhaps. Thank you.

Joshua Mast (94:20)

Thank you, thank you. We really appreciate it.

Stephanie Mast (94:28)

Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.