Secret Service Interrogator: How He Got Killers to Talk | Brad Beeler

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Hidden Third

Episode: "Secret Service Interrogator: How He Got Killers to Talk" | Guest: Brad Beeler

Host: Mariana van Zeller
Date: August 12, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging and deeply insightful episode, Mariana van Zeller interviews Brad Beeler, a renowned US Secret Service polygrapher and interrogator. Beeler, now an author, dives into his 25-year career uncovering the hidden truths of some of society’s most secretive and dangerous individuals: child predators, counterfeiters, fraudsters, and killers. The conversation weaves together Beeler’s interrogation techniques, ethical philosophy, field stories, and lessons on human behavior—offering practical communication insights for law enforcement and everyday life alike.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Foundations of Communication and Interrogation

• Role of Early Influences:

  • Beeler shares how his high school speech teacher, Ms. Bertrand, and his lifelong deaf friend Doug shaped his understanding of nuanced communication—emphasizing body language, attention, and improvisation.

    "It's not the words, it's how you say the words." (Brad, 04:33)

• Being Present:

  • Doug’s deafness forced Brad to become acutely present, picking up on hidden emotions, clarifying body language, and truly listening to people (06:18).
  • Host and guest agree that good communication is “like jazz”: improvisational, responsive, rather than scripted (09:02).

2. Building Trust and Eliciting the Truth

• Non-Judgmental Approach:

  • Beeler sees his role as meeting people where they’re most vulnerable, in the “second part of their life”—where their secrets, shame, and self-justifications lie.

    "The boogeyman doesn’t think he’s the boogeyman...I’m meeting them in the dark stuff they keep hidden." (Brad, 16:42)

• Techniques:

  • “Barbecue, not grilling”: Effective interrogation is slow, patient, and built on trust, not aggressive tactics.

    “Grilling is fast, it’s hot, it’s transactional…I like barbecue.” (Brad, 15:33)

  • Establishing Commonality:

    • Seeking out familiar interests (even offering favorite fast food) humanizes suspects and lowers defenses (16:42).
    • Conversation is 80% listening and gentle steering—much like a good podcast.

  • Empathy as a Tool:

    • People want to be understood. Creating space where they can explain their actions, without immediate judgment, draws out truths otherwise hidden.

3. True Stories from the Field

• Toughest Cases:

  • Beeler recounts chilling interviews with a couple producing CSAM (child sexual abuse material)—successfully using small personal details and food as rapport builders to elicit full confessions (16:42).
  • Many offenders rationalize their actions as responses to their own childhood trauma, providing insight into their psychology and his role in surfacing truths necessary for prosecution and prevention (21:27).

• Dangers of Assumptions and Bias:

  • Tells of a homicide interrogation where his assumption nearly missed the real killer, illustrating the importance of checking biases and listening for “that’s not it” (38:19).

4. The Power and Limits of Polygraph Examinations

• History and Use:

  • The Secret Service has origins in fighting counterfeiting (1865), but expanded to include polygraph work, with Beeler conducting more criminal exams than anyone in agency history.

• Polygraph Science:

  • Polygraph measures heart rate, breathing, and sweat/skin resistance. Under ideal, controlled conditions, accuracy can approach 90%, but it’s never infallible—thus unsuitable as sole evidence in court (66:39).
  • Artful interviewing—understanding subject psychology—is more critical than the machine itself (“You don’t beat the instrument, you beat the person.” 70:26).

• Limitations:

  • Not effective with severely mentally ill or dissociated subjects (73:01).
  • Innocent people’s nervousness can be misread—a lesson for both law enforcement and parents (85:40).

5. Effective Interviewing: Gender, Bias, and Empathy

• Women as Interrogators:

  • Female agents often excel due to empathy, being less threatening, and adaptability—Beeler calls this “the Crayola box” approach (39:50).
  • Empathy, curiosity, and a less judgmental stance open doors even in hardest cases.

• Body Language Techniques:

  • Mirroring, posture shifts, and positive “soft eyes” signal openness and can draw out confessions (77:35–82:31).
  • Warm handshakes, respect for names, and environmental cues matter from the first moment.

6. Humanizing the Offender and the Process

• Perspective Matters:

  • Most people, even those who’ve committed crime, do not see themselves as evil. Had their life circumstances been different, outcomes may have been as well (34:01).

    “95% of the people I talk to aren’t evil.” (Brad, 34:01)

• Redemption and Change:

  • The “King of Counterfeit,” Art Williams, transforms his skills from crime to legitimate art after prison—a rare but inspiring journey (56:06).

7. Toll on the Interrogator

• Emotional Impact:

  • Years of exposure to evil acts took a toll on Beeler’s mental and physical health, leading him to transition to teaching interrogation skills (27:59–29:13).

• Ego and Complacency:

  • Ego and assumptions can lead to investigative failure—constant learning, self-examination, and humility are necessary in both law enforcement and journalism (86:59–92:22).

8. Behind the Scenes: Presidential Protection

• Secret Service Dual Role:

  • Beeler shares warm stories of H.W. and Barbara Bush, underscores the need for flexibility, observation, and treating all with respect—presidents and perpetrators alike (98:26–104:37).

• On the Butler Assassination Attempt:

  • Candid reflection on the breakdowns (reliance on local law enforcement, communication silos, and the challenges of mass events) that enabled the 2026 attempt on Trump’s life; calls for greater resources and training (93:13–98:14).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The boogeyman doesn’t think he’s the boogeyman...They know what they’re doing is wrong, but they want somebody to understand what they’ve been lying to themselves about.”
  — Brad, 00:27 and 16:42

• “A good podcast is like good communication…Prep on the front end, then let it go like jazz." — Brad, 15:04

• “Barbecuing [interrogations] is preparation. It's low, it's slow. Grilling is fast, transactional…I like barbecue." — Brad, 15:33

• “When people feel they can tell you anything, they'll tell you everything.” — Brad (from his book), 112:03

• "Understanding is not agreement." — Brad, 110:45

• “You don’t beat the instrument [polygraph], you beat the person.” — Brad, 70:26

• _"I want to make a great first impression—a handshake, an eyebrow flash, soft eyes...but I don't rely on first impressions. They're just bias sometimes." — Brad, 38:19

• "Empathy and respect are universal...If you treat people with respect, you get respect back, no matter their background." — Brad, 41:00

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:27 | Opening philosophy: “The boogeyman doesn’t think he’s the boogeyman…”
• 02:51 | Early Inspiration: Ms. Bertrand and Doug’s influence
• 06:18 | Attention and Presence: Lessons from a deaf friend
• 09:02 | “Jazz” of Conversation: Interviewing as improv
• 15:33 | BBQ vs. Grilling: Trust-building metaphors
• 16:42 | Eliciting Confessions: Food, empathy, and the “second life”
• 34:01 | Evil vs. Circumstance: Most are not “evil”
• 39:50 | Gender Dynamics: Women as superior interviewers
• 56:06 | Redemption Story: Art Williams, King of Counterfeit
• 66:39 | Polygraph Science and Limits: Why it’s not court admissible
• 70:26 | Beating the Polygraph?: It’s about the interviewer, not the machine
• 77:35 | Reading Body Language: Practical techniques for rapport
• 85:50 | Emotional Toll and False Positives: Innocent people and nerves
• 86:59 | Ego Gets in Way: Interrogator and journalist parallels
• 93:13 | Butler Assassination Attempt: Lessons and what went wrong
• 98:26 | Secret Service Life: Stories with HW and Barbara Bush
• 110:43 | “Understanding is not agreement”: Reflections on not condoning evil
• 112:03 | “When people feel they can tell you anything …” Closing takeaways

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Final Thoughts & Takeaways

Brad Beeler’s approach to interrogation—rooted in humility, deep listening, empathy, and respect—offers lessons for criminal investigators, journalists, and anyone looking to improve their communication and understanding of others. His stories from the interrogation room, the polygraph suite, and the presidential detail reveal the complexities and humanity behind every headline. For Beeler, getting to the truth is less about tactics and more about establishing a fundamentally human connection.

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Recommended:

Brad Beeler’s book: Tell Me Everything— An accessible guide to effective communication for law enforcement and everyday life.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Mariana]

Introducing Meta glasses.

[Brad Beeler]

Hey, Meta, any last minute tables for two tonight? Sure.

[Mariana]

There's a great Italian restaurant 15 minutes away.

[Brad Beeler]

Hey, Meta, where's the nearest flower shop?

[Mariana]

Five minutes away, straight down Broadway, past the bodega. Their lilies are trending on Instagram.

[Brad Beeler]

Just saying. Hey, Meta, am I forgetting anything else?

[Mariana]

How about setting a calendar reminder for next year?

[Brad Beeler]

Meta glasses available in more than 20 styles. The boogeyman doesn't think he's the Boogeyman. And I'm meeting people in the second part of their life. The first part of their life is what they tell their friends, their family members. It's what they put online. Right? It's a good place. I'm meeting them in the dark stuff that they keep hidden the recesses. And they know what they're doing is wrong, but they want somebody to understand what they've been lying to their self about. Their own justifications for why they did that thing.

[Mariana]

Okay, so my guest today has sat across the table from child predators, counterfeiters, fraudsters, and killers. And this is the surprising part. He's gotten a remarkable number of them to tell him the truth. But before I bring him in, three quick things that help keep the show going on. Subscribe to us on YouTube. Follow and rate us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Give us a five star rating, of course. And check us out on [e-mail] Hidden third. That's where we put all the good stuff. All right, now let's go meet our guest. Okay. Brad Beeler. Welcome to the Hidden Third. So, Brad, I'm going to do a little intro so people know who I'm talking to. Brad spent 25 years in the US Secret Service, and a large part of that as a polygrapher, More criminal. You've done more criminal polygraph exams than anyone else in the agency's history, which is insane. You were named Special Agent of the Year for your work combating crimes against children. And you spent years on the protective detail of several residents and travel to dozens and dozens of countries on protection missions. And you finish your career training thousands of federal agents in interrogation and interview techniques, which I really want to talk about. And then you've written a book recently where you talk about everything that you've learned. And it's a book for everyone, right? Not just for law enforcement. And it's called Tell Me Everything. So, Brad, beer? I'm sure I'm not the first one to start an interview with you like this, but tell Me everything.

[Brad Beeler]

Thanks. For having me on.

[Mariana]

Of course. I'm so happy you're here. Okay, so I'm. You have a long career, and I want to talk a lot about it, but I also always like to start these episodes with a little bit of back into your. I'm not going to go as far as your childhood, but I know that there was an English and speech and drama teacher that was important in your life. And can you tell me about that?

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah. So, Ms. Bertrand, I. 16 years old, and she was an amazing woman back in Union, Missouri, hour, southwest of St. Louis and the Ozarks, Kind of a very, very small town.

[Mariana]

But that's where you grew up?

[Brad Beeler]

That's where I grew up.

[Mariana]

And what did your parents do, by the way?

[Brad Beeler]

My dad was a professor in college, a math professor, so he was very linear in his thinking. And my mom was a beautician and then a legal secretary, so she was very conversational. So I kind of got the best of both worlds when they came there. But they've been together for, I think, 62 years now. So I got to see what a lot of the people I talked to didn't see. Stable, you know, parenting in that situation. But, yeah, Ms. Bertrand, she was amazing. She was a speech teacher at Union High School, and she was dealing with unbelievable pain in her life from rheumatoid arthritis. But she was one of those people that came into work every single day with a smile on her face, despite her physical pain. And she wanted to make people better for having met her. And she did a great job at that and helped me. I was very introverted growing up. It's weird that I've spent my life talking about communication, but was very introverted. And she helped me kind of come out of my shell. And she taught improvisational duet acting and that. And my deaf best friend of the last 35 years, Doug, who I met in high school as well, I learned more about communication from somebody that was deaf than I did about anybody that could speak, because you have to be present when you were speaking with him. So you had to look at him in the eyes. You had to express yourself very, very well. You had to use body language. So all those forms of communication you

[Mariana]

had to bring to bear and tell me, I'm going to go back to both of those people. Your teacher, she taught you something, which I wrote it down, but it was that it's not the words, it's how you say the words, right? It's something that became a part of the way you communicate 100%.

[Brad Beeler]

And you can think about it. That's why emojis were created for smartphones, right? Because if my wife, if she sends me a text, I'm fine. Well, that can mean I'm fine or I'm fine, right? Or I'm fine. That depends. Do I need to get flowers, chocolates, or are we talking jewelry here? Right. So that's why emojis were invented, is that. It's how you say it. Okay, So I really, really stress to my students and just people in general, you have to not focus on the words. The words are so little importance when you're talking to people. It's how you say the words in the body language. I mean, you travel the world, right? And you speak probably many languages, probably several languages. You're not like most Americans that speak American. Right? That's all we speak. But when you go to a subway in a European city, the average American does what we, we look at body language before spoken word, 200,000 years ago, what did people look at to determine are they in a threatening situation? They look at, you know, spoken word. So I, when I'm trying to elicit information, I can't come in with a scowl or that New York City subway face, like leave me alone face. I have to have those soft eyes. I have to have that body language. I have to have the congruence between my spoken words and how I'm presenting myself in that. If I'm talking to a lot of bad people, if I throw that brow and I, you know, think about a Catholic confessional. Why do people talk to the priest in the Catholic confessional? It's not because the priest says what you did. What? It's not because the priest furrows his brow because you can't see the priest. He's non judgmental. He provides an open environment in which you can get some type of salvation. And, and that's what I try to do when I talk to people, is don't focus so much on the words. But what Ms. Bertrand said, how do we say those words?

[Mariana]

And then, and then Doug, your, your friend, childhood friend, deaf. And you've learned a lot from him. You, you, you just mentioned how you communicated with him, but what did you learn from the way he communicated with you, too?

[Brad Beeler]

So he would, obviously he was amazing at his ability to detect hidden emotion. Because you gotta think the number one thing you can give people in today's center, you know, for many, many generations, is your attention, is your focus to. Especially now. We're always, by looking at our smartphones, we're getting notifications. He, because he would read lips, he was mainstreamed. He. He knew sign as well, but he would look you in the face. And because he was always looking at people, he picked up all those hidden emotions on, is somebody down? Are they not having a good day, whatever the case may be? And I took a lot away from that in that I watch people, I look at people, and I see. Is what I'm seeing resonating with you? Oh, did you give me that. Throw the bra like you didn't understand? You need clarification? Or like, right now you're nodding along, you're like, oh, I'm tracking, so I will continue to go on. And too many people don't do that. They hit that play button in their head. Just, you know, trist. Transactional conversation. Oh, it's my turn. It's your turn. Oh, I'm thinking in my head, what am I going to say next? We can understand about 400 words per minute. So people that are listening to this podcast can hit it double time. And we're going to sound like the Chipmunks for a little bit, but in real time, eventually it's going to. It's going to come together. But what happens is we typically speak at about 150 words per minute, so we have a lot of free time. So listeners, what do they do? They get lazy. They think, what am I going to say next? And you probably have maybe fought with this as a journalist, when you're interviewing people where you have an idea in your head what I'm going to ask. But that time goes and your guest takes it somewhere else. And what you have to realize is good communication is like jazz. You got to let it just happen.

[Mariana]

I completely agree. Absolutely. You know, there's one thing that I've learned from my experience. When I started journalism and I start, I didn't know what I was doing. I mean, particularly interviewing. It's not easy. Just like your. Your work, it's very similar, actually. And at the beginning, I would go into these interviews and I was nervous. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to ask the right questions or get the right, right answer. So I'd go in prepared with a list of questions. And very early on, it was actually Errol Morris, who is the documentary filmmaker, very famous, you know, won every award out there. Amazing guy. And I was interviewing him. And again, I was so nervous about interviewing him because he's known as one of the best interviewers of all time. And I asked him what, what Adv have for young people who want to be as good at you as you interviewing. And he said, well, first of all, don't do what you're doing, which is come prepared with a list of questions. And I was like, yeah, because what happens is, like, I actually have a list of sort of themes in front of me right now for this interview. Generally when I'm in the field, it never happens. But I think what happens is when you have a list of questions in front of you, your tendency, even in your mind, it's. Is to go back to the questions and not allow for the conversation to flow. Right.

[Brad Beeler]

100%.

[Mariana]

And you lose a lot of times, not only the spontaneity, but you lose crucial facts of what the person is because you're sort of stuck to this script. But you're also giving that person the idea that you're. That this is work for you, that you are genuinely not even that curious or interested about this person. Right. That this is kind of work for you. Right. You have this. You've prepared for this. And the more that person feels that this is, that you're genuinely curious and interested in them and their lives, the more they'll open up.

[Brad Beeler]

I totally agree. And I think my Uber driver's name was Antonio on the way here. And I had the best conversation with Antonio because I was generally curious and he was generally curious, and there was no script. It was improv. That's what Ms. Bertrand taught me back in high school was improv. You'd get a bazooka bubblegum card that had. On the bottom. It had a skit or a scene or a riddle, and you and your partner had five minutes to come up with a scene. You had to act that out in front of other people. And that's what I bet some of your greatest interviews were like that where you didn't know how it was going to go. And you just. Once again, just like jazz, you play off of somebody else's riff 100% and don't have your prepared question. Okay, that's great to have background, but just use it just as that background.

[Mariana]

Yeah, absolutely. So I just came back from vacation in Portugal, my beautiful home country, and any opportunity I have to talk about it, I will. And can you guess what I spent my time doing there? If you guess drinking copious amounts of wine, you're right. But the rest of my time was spent doing something equally fun and equally unhealthy, which is hours and hours at the beach with friends under the scorching sun. But don't you worry about me because I have the best facial moisturizer on the planet. Here it is. I take it with me everywhere. It's super creamy, really sinks into my skin and my face feels so hydrated. It's called One Skin and the only reason my face doesn't look like a raisin right now is because of this. The eye cream is also amazing. It has this luxurious texture that instantly makes my under eyes look less party girl and more health obsessed. What makes this One skin product so different from everything else out There is their OS1 peptide. That's OS1. It's the first ingredient actually proven to target the cells behind wrinkles, fine lines and loss of elastic. So this isn't just surface level skincare, it's actually real science. It's also free from over 1500 harsh or irritating ingredients. So it's safe even if you have sensitive skin. And here's my favorite part. It was founded by an all woman team of PhDs, which means we can absolutely trust it. It's a little jab. The guys out there. Sorry, boys. Anyway, born from over 10 years of longevity research, Oneskin is helping you unlock your healthiest skin skin now. And as you age, for a limited time, try one skin with 15% off using code MARIANA@ ONESKINCO. MARIANA, that's 15% off at ONESKIN Co with code Mariana. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please, please, please support our show and tell them we sent you. Thank you so much. Is this something that you think you learned when you started doing this kind of work or did you come sort of with that ending in mind already? Were you a good. I mean, I know that you say you were sort of an introvert, but were you usually good with people or.

[Brad Beeler]

I think I had three sisters. So my classroom was three sisters. And my dad very linear in his communication. My mom, very. She was always asking questions like, what, what is it about? Like. And I was always asking why I was a goalkeeper. So in football, or as you would call it in Europe and soccer, I. I was always observing things, I was always watching things, you know, trying to see how things lined up. And I think for me, communication really hit when I was in graduate school and I was studying criminology and the highest paying job on campus was what was called the Drug use forecasting program. And the impetus behind it was, it was throughout the United States, but this was in St. Louis. And we would go and we would recent arrestees for a Snickers bar and a Mountain Dew. We would get a urine drop from them. And what they were trying to do is find out drug trends, you know, usage patterns throughout the United States. And we'd also ask about gang affiliation, firearms ownership, those types of things. Completely anonymous. But here I am, you know, kid from a small town that had never experienced any of this, and I'm talking to pimps, prostitutes, rapists, robbers. And it's amazing that, yes, it was transactional to a point, but when you ask people about leisure activities, like, hey, man, how do you make methods? Oh, you, you get a 2 liter bottle and you do this and you do that. Oh, how. What's your best time for prostitution? People want to teach you.

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

And when they don't, like, feel like they're getting judged, that oxytocin, that dopamine, gets released and they associate that with you. And whereas when you start asking interrogative questions, you get cortisol. And neurologically, cortisol, the stress hormone, stays in your body and has a half life, much longer than dopamine and oxytocin and serotonin. So I have to put multiple deposits in the bank trust before I do withdrawals. So when I use, say, preparation, I get background. I will do a deep dive in social media because people used to put things in their diary, now they put it online. So I will look for pain points, areas of organic interest. Because when people are in a foreign land, they look for familiarity. And you may have seen this. When you travel, let's say you are a Dodgers fan. Here in la, everybody's got a Dodgers hat. You go to New York, you might get a head nod. Hey, who's pitching tonight? You go to Portugal and you see a Dodgers hat, you're best friends with these people, right? I need to provide that sense of familiarity in a foreign land. And the interrogation room is a foreign land to people. So I want to find those commonalities and then I want to let them talk. 80% of the time, a good podcast is like good communication. You prep on the front end, you make a great introduction. You got me this wonderful cup when I got here, right.

[Mariana]

Filled with alcohol. Just kidding. It's just water.

[Brad Beeler]

And you see, made a great first impression. And then as most podcasts happen that are good episodes, they just go where they go. They're that jazz. But you let the guest talk about 80% of the time, if they go down a rabbit hole, you kind of bring them back. If they say something profound, probably won't say anything profound, but let's say something interesting. You tease it out. But you always advocate for the guest.

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

And that's good communication. It's good podcasting. And I equate it to. I don't grill people. I like barbecue.

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

Grilling is fast. It's hot, it's transactional. I put my burger and my hot dog on there. Barbecuing is preparation. It's low, it's slow. I take the worst cut of meat, a brisket, and over the course of 14 hours, I turn it into something. Just using smoke.

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

And that's the metaphor I like to use when you communicate. Don't view it as grilling. Don't view it as transactional. View it as trying to leave everybody better off for having met you.

[Mariana]

Yeah. Yeah. That's a beautiful, beautiful way of saying two things that I would add to that. The commonality is something that I use a lot for sure. One of the things I do is sometimes I bring cigarettes and I see. I ask if or if the person is smoking. I ask if I can share a cigarette so they know that we're sort of on the same. Also, beers also work really well. But I also very often show a photo of my son and ask them about their kids. And then the other thing that I was going to add to the science behind it, which I thought was really fascinating, is, is I think most people just want to be understood that it's a very common characteristic that we all have. Right. So if we give people that opportunity, instead of judging them, to just allow them or show them that we are interested in understanding them and that we're giving them an opportunity to have other people understand them, that. That I think goes a long, long way.

[Brad Beeler]

The boogeyman doesn't think he's the boogeyman. Right. And I'm meeting people in the second part of their life. The first part of their life is what they tell their friends, their family members. It's what they put online. Right. It's a good parts. I'm meeting them in the dark stuff that they keep hidden, the recesses. And they know what they're doing is wrong, but they want somebody to understand what they've been lying to their self about. Their own justifications for that, why they did that thing. And you mentioned food. I love using food, for one. It's a barometer on how is that person internally feeling from an anxiety standpoint. If I was really nervous about this interview and if I came in and you offered me some. My stomach, I can't really. Right. That lets me know. Because all mammals won't eat when their heart rate's at a certain point. So that's a good barometer for me. But it's also from a reciprocity standpoint, what do you do when somebody comes to your house? You show them around, say there's not any bad things here. You show them where the bathroom is and then you offer them something to drink. Yeah, I do that with everybody. I talk to one of the worst offenders that I've ever spoken with. It was a male and female. They just got sentenced so I can talk about it. But they were sending inappropriate images to one another of age based images. And they were able to determine through the carpet on the floor that that was also the carpet on their apartment department where the photos were coming from. So now we didn't just have distribution of CSAM child sexual abuse material, but we had production. So that definitely jumped it up. So I had made a poor gastrointestinal choice on the way up there. It was on a Friday. It was like 5:30. I stopped at a local, I guess we'd call it like a Wawa here. The closest it was a QT back in the South. But I got the two Buffalo cheese rollers and an energy drink with like 300 milligrams cotton candy flavor. So that was the four first, poor choice. But I thought I was going to have a couple hours to kind of digest and they were ready to go. And they we got to talk to these people. Right now it's a boyfriend and girlfriend and she's a babysitter. And I looked on, I unfortunately I made some assumptions and we always get wrong when assumptions when we think, oh, I think it went this way. I thought he was driving the train on the abuse and the pictures. So I started with him and from his social media he was a big Wendy's fan. So of course I pull my wallet out, I get 20 bucks, I give it to the detective, I say I'm starving. I was going to get some Wendy's. I said him, can I get you some Wendy's? Oh my gosh, Wendy's is my favorite. Can I get double cheeseburger? Can I get a frosty? You know, can I get an orange drink? Absolutely, man, I want the same thing too. So I validated his choice. I provided him something which for him it was something that he liked. And people like people that are like them. So we broke bread. He immediately started eating. So now I know from an anxiety standpoint he's feeling good. About 45 minutes later, he admits to six victims. But he says some things that are very, very interesting. That one, she's kind of driving the train as far as she uses this imagery to de stress, which I'd never heard before. Right. It's just so out of, out of nature. So within 30 minutes, we're ready to talk to her. From her social media, she was a big McDonald's fan. So the problem is I've got two Buffalo cheese rollers, I've got the bang energy, I've got an orange drink, I've got a super sized fry, I've got a Frosty. And now she comes in and of course, hey, I'm starving. I was going to get a McDonald's. Can I get you some? Oh, McDonald's is my favorite. Can I get a Big Mac? Can I get a. And so I got through about half of that with her. But it was just amazing how that familiarity. And she eventually admitted to 13 victims when I talked to her. And the other thing that we did is were they.

[Mariana]

Sorry, can I ask a cute question? Were they selling the material?

[Brad Beeler]

They weren't.

[Mariana]

They were. It was they.

[Brad Beeler]

They themselves, they were keeping it for themselves. They were abusing the kids physically, sexually, and they were photographing it and sending it to one another. Yeah, it was awful.

[Mariana]

These were kids that she was with. Babysitting.

[Brad Beeler]

Babysitting, yeah. So three to seven, roughly age range. So very, very young kids.

[Mariana]

And she admitted to 13 of these.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, 13. And I truly believe we probably had the tip of the iceberg. She said, of course, you know, some of this could be self serving on her standpoint. But she said something that obviously happened to her. He also said something had happened to her at that roughly the same age range. And that's how she was trying to come to grips with the why. And I, and I hear that commonly some of it could be, like I said, self serving from the standpoint of it makes them feel better about.

[Mariana]

She said she was abused. And he said he was.

[Brad Beeler]

He said he was abused. The interesting part about what he said is I like to spend time in family, education, employment, leisure, when I first talk to people, and definitely leisure activities. And when I asked him, what do you like to do in your free time? He said, I love my dog. I said, well, tell me about your dog. Right. Like how you showed those pictures of your kids.

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

And it humanizes people. And he says, it's a pit bull. It's a Stafford charter. A lot of people assume it's a pit bull, but it's the most important thing in my life, not his Girlfriend. Not his job, his dog. So, well, tell me about your dog. And then I asked him, I said, you know, pit bulls get a bad reputation because, yeah, it's. But it's all about how you raise them. He's like, if you raise them right, they're the greatest pets. They're. Mine's a little princess. It wouldn't hurt a fly. But if you put OC spray on it and you withhold food, or you put a shot collar on it and you force it to fight, it becomes a bad animal. So about 10 minutes later, you put that in your head. And I say, well, you mentioned some things happened to you. I said, I think your life trajectory was changed. I said, you were that pit bull. You said, at the age of seven, something bad happened to you. Your asteroid was knocked off orbit, and we're seeing the impact now. But people outside this room are not seeing what changed that trajectory. Your dad changed that trajectory. Just like that dog you taught is good. You were not nurtured in the standpoint that you should have been, and that's what caused him to admit. So if you listen, you can get the ammunition that they're already having that conversation in their head. And all I'm doing is I'm providing that gasoline so that they can speak it to me. They can provide that. Why?

[Mariana]

And can you explain this might be a stupid question, but can you explain why it was important for you to get them to admit? I mean, was there evidence out there? How important is it the work that you do?

[Brad Beeler]

So a lot of times what happens is. And people that work in the space, there's actually obviously hsi, FBI, local, you know, organizations. So many times what happens is the people will engage in the imagery or we do a lot of To Catch a Predator operations. So when I work with Internet Crimes Against Children task forces, so what we do is these people will show up. And then since 2003, and I know postals, and I want to say customs went back when it was customs, before it became hsi, they would do something similar where they would polygraph these people after they show up or subsequent to a search warrant where they had imagery.

[Mariana]

So just to clarify, these are people, they're being lured, right? They lure people in pretending that they're 13, 14 year old kids. They lure them in and then. And that's when. Then you come.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, we will. They will come to a house and then the police officer will obviously be an undercover. And then what we will do is you've got them dead to rights with the Chat logs or with the imagery. But you don't have, unless you're lucky enough forensically to have the images. A lot of times you don't have them talking about the full extent of all the things that they've done through that life catalog. Right. And it's typically horrific. So what we found as an organization. So a lot of people are like, secret Service, you guys do protection? Well, we were founded in 1865 to stop counterfeit.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

1901, we took over protection.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

1994, the National center of Missing Exploited Children reached out to Congress and said, hey, we, we need forensic help to stop this scourge. Adam Walsh was running ncmec and Congress said the Secret Service is best positioned because we were doing a lot of credit card fraud and computer based fraud at the time. So we got congressionally mandated to provide the support and we started a forensic institute at Hoover, Alabama that taught tens of thousands of local police officers forensic skills. But then our polygraph examiners since that time have done almost 10,000 polygons polygraphs on those types of cases to assist local law enforcement. And what we've found is that 60% of the people that either show up at a house looking at a 12, 13, 14 year old or download the imagery, 60% admit to previous hands on contact. So the force multiplication, There's a lot of controversy about polygraph. I'm not an acolyte with polygraph. I did polygraph for a long time. It's not perfect, it shouldn't be used in court. It needs guardrails. Right time, right place, right headspace with highly trained people, good quality control. But in that environment, it is amazing what people will tell you. So that's, that's kind of been my life's work. My last case that I worked was the most disturbing. And it was time for me to definitely walk away.

[Mariana]

And it was a child's case.

[Brad Beeler]

It was a child case. So before I went to my protective detail, I had two that were very problematic. I had a deaf individual. And the fact that I knew about 2,000 words at the time of sign language and the fact that I knew how to really enunciate so that he could understand and communicate was very helpful. And once again, he felt very familiar with me. And he was in a foreign land, but he was a church volunteer. And what I've learned, and you may have experienced this in talking to people, very rarely does a predator look like he's got horns. Usually it looks like he's got a halo over his head. The best Predators look like our school teacher, our next door neighbor. And that's what this individual was.

[Mariana]

And the most, a lot of them are actually right. Or are people closer to you.

[Brad Beeler]

Look at Ted Bundy.

[Mariana]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brad Beeler]

Very attractive, you know, normal people. And this individual, chubby cheeks, just a little heavyset, just looked very unassuming. But he was a church volunteer in the, in the kids section. Late 20s, like I said, looked totally harmless. An allegation came in. We were going to polygraph him and I met him and talked to him and I'm going to help you. And in the pretest, he admitted to multiple molesting. 20 of these kids. So we go to the house and we're collecting some evidence. He had taken some photos. He had, we just kind of basically saw his, where he would groom these kids. And I just remember my partner Brian, amazing polygraph examiner. And I, he, he wanted to make us dinner. Like we had gone to such a dark place and formed such a bond with him that he didn't understand why he couldn't make us dinner. The ramifications of his actions, that he was going away for the rest of his life, hadn't hit and unfortunately had gone to such dark places that he wanted to be our buddy.

[Mariana]

He saw you guys as friends.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, absolutely. And then the next week we go down to southern Illinois and we have a barber. He'd been a barber for 40 years. Looked like Captain Kangaroo from the TV show. Totally unassuming, beautiful Victorian house in a small town in Illinois. And he once again was a barber for 40 years. And he described it. He had kept polaroids for four decades of his abuse that he had had actually plastered into the wall. He kept trying to stop and that was how he would let it scab over as he plastered over these hundreds of Polaroid photos of his abuse. And he talked about it and he said, Brad, when I, when they were three or four and they would come in, I would touch the back of their neck. And he said, that's when I knew I was going to act. That's when I knew I was going to pursue. Okay, and those high level offenders, I know you've talked to a lot of people in this space, they are like intelligence operatives. They're trying to recruit a foreign source. They spot, they assess, they target, they find exploitable information. They get bad targets. When I say bad targets, people that maybe aren't believed. They groom the family around them.

[Mariana]

That's right.

[Brad Beeler]

And they take advantage of.

[Mariana]

Right. Same with scammers and cult leaders. Yes, exact same thing. Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

Yes. And. And he just. So those two cases hit, and then a bunch of other cases hit, and I didn't realize what was happening to me. I didn't realize I was taking on water. You know, in that old saying about, you know, a ship doesn't sink from the water outside the hull, it sinks from the water that gets in the hall. And I physically was in great shape, but mentally, I was. I was getting rotten from going to all these dark places. I was having heart issues. I thought I was having panic attacks. I thought I was having a heart attack one day, went to the er. They did a catheter, went into my heart. Your heart's fine. And mentally, I was just. The disassociation between who I was in the interrogation room and who I was in my everyday life. And now I had kids that were in the same age range as a lot of the offenders were talking about it made it very, very difficult for me. So I took a break and said, I want to go teaching, and, hey, let's teach a man to fish instead of fish. And that's when I went to the national center of Credibility Assessment to teach interview interrogation so that I maybe wasn't in the trenches as much. And then I know we can maybe jump back and forth. But then that all leads to the last case where another To Catch a Predator operation. And you talk about people that are dedicated because the men and women that work these cases are just amazing.

[Mariana]

Right. So when we're talking about To Catch a Predator, we're not talking about television shows or YouTube shows. We're talking about actual agents.

[Brad Beeler]

And yeah, unfortunately, when you see. Unfortunately, when you see a lot of these YouTube videos, these are cases in which somebody's going to get killed doing this. These cases typically cannot be adopted by law enforcement because it's someone acting, you know, they haven't been trained on how to chat with people. Their heart might be in the right place, but the vigilante stuff is problematic because it hurts our actual operations. So, yes, these are actual operations, law enforcement professionals, and.

[Mariana]

Which is how it should be done,

[Brad Beeler]

100%, because these are trained professionals. I know in South Carolina, they really take this to the next level. They're some of the most active at doing this. And I'll be careful with how I talk about it, but one of the individuals we were targeting, he was very leery because he'd been previously arrested. And he says to Kevin, he says, kevin, I mean, he's obviously thinks she's Cindy or whatever, but he's talking on the chats. He's like, I need you to. I need a proof of life. He goes, you say you live near a lake. I need you to go take a picture near the lake. And this is pre AI a little bit. So we. Our capabilities were limited, but Kevin went to his house, got on his wife's bikini. No, he went out on the dock. And it's. I show it in all my classes because it's just hilarious. Because he's this very attractive man with great embarrassing difference.

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

But yeah, he puts on the bikini and he gets a seductive pose. And they obviously have to alter it a little bit to make it look age.

[Mariana]

Photoshop toes a little bit.

[Brad Beeler]

Some more Photoshop, but enough to where the dinner bell was rung. And this person drove through the night to go see. To go. And he showed up and he agreed to take a polygraph. And in the interview, Pre interview for the polygraph. We never got to a polygraph. He utilized social media information to ingratiate himself with a female that had access. And that's what. You have to be careful nowadays, because people can take your face from Bumble or whatever dating site, and they can run it through a facial recognition software, and it can show where all your social media stuff is, and then they can mine that information to find out your pain points, the things you like, your disinterests. And before you know it, they can become that mythical Prince Charming. And that's what he did. He didn't care about her at all, but she was the avenue to get what he wanted. And he admitted the first victim was an infant. Second victim was an infant. The third victims for an infant. And I said, what else? I always say, what else? Before I lock things in. And I said, what else? 29 times he admitted to 30 infants. And the craziest part about it was. And you can hear the detectives that are listening in the other room, just disgusted, right? And I've got to try to put metaphorical duct tape on my forehead to not show disgust and disdain. And I finally asked him, I go, what was it about? Was this like a vampire that needs to quench that? And he goes, yeah, kind of. He goes, but Brad, he was more like, you know when you haven't had your grandma's home cooking in a while? And he goes, thanksgiving rolls around, and maybe you missed Thanksgiving. So, man, when can I get over there again? And you go over there and you open the door and you're just hit with collard greens and mashed potatoes. And, you know, he goes, now I know I'm home. Because that's what offending was like for me. And I knew that. That I was eligible to retire. I took some of my students in South Carolina. We love barbecue and we love buffet barbecue. It's a little different. And that you can just walk up like a buffet and get your. And I remember vividly I got my. My pork pulled pork. I got my Mac and cheese, and then there were collard greens.

[Mariana]

Yeah. And it's still.

[Brad Beeler]

And it triggered me and I started dry heaving. Everybody's like, what. What's your problem? That was it for me. And my wife, you know, at the time, unfortunately, got diagnosed with cancer and was about to go through chemotherapy. So it was just time to.

[Mariana]

Sorry to hear that.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah.

[Mariana]

But she's doing.

[Brad Beeler]

She's doing great. Okay. Yeah, she. She. She beat the hell out of it.

[Mariana]

Good.

[Brad Beeler]

And how are you doing great now? You know, I'm teaching now. I'm back to doing what I love. I'm not really in the interrogation room. So once again, teaching it. Spreading the word. But. But it was definitely time.

[Mariana]

So those cases are obviously. I mean, we're talking about trying to understand the person and trying to connect. Those cases are. They're pure evil. Right. There's like the most disgusting thing you can possibly do. But I've heard you talk about how the majority. And as I've sat across the table, much like you, with the people that are considered, you know, the bad guys, Right. The traffickers, the scammers, the fraudsters, all of that. What percentage, more or less, do you think of those people are not. Are evil, like the ones you just spoke about versus the people that it could have happened to us if we were under the same.

[Brad Beeler]

I'm. I'm probably an outlier there because I think 95% of the people I talk to aren't evil.

[Mariana]

Right. I'm the same way.

[Brad Beeler]

Right. Isn't that. But people listen to that and they're like, how do you talk to this guy? They're horrible, horrible people. They've killed people there. Yeah. But it's all about perspective and perception. Right. Like, I have to have their perspective. I didn't grow up in their situation. My parents have been married for 62 years. You know, I. I had situations that they did. I can't imagine. Grow up in a barrio in Mexico somewhere and you can join the gang or you can do this. I don't know.

[Mariana]

I mean. Yeah. I mean, you know, when half of the world's population. Population is living with under $7 a day and without an. Opportunities that we are lucky to have had.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah.

[Mariana]

I mean, a lot of times. And your kids are starving. I would do anything for them.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mariana]

You.

[Brad Beeler]

I mean, I can. I can't imagine you in Syria seeing the things that you saw there. Right. Is that post 9 11, I was. I was hit with a situation like that where there was a case in which and a person was convicted of material support of terrorism. There was also a nexus to the Secret Service of some financial crimes cases. There was some problems in his original case. And DOJ came in and said, we're going to offer a global plea agreement, which is we're just going to take all the cases against this person, and if he passes this polygraph, he'll get this. So he had a lot on the line, and I had absolutely nothing in common with this person. I don't know if he's a terrorist or not. I know he doesn't like America. I know he. We have different religious backgrounds. I know what he had put on social media. And I have nothing in common with this person. But in that situation, it's the proudest polygraph I think I've ever did, is because I got him in the right headspace. And he passed that test because he truly was not guilty of what people had convicted him of. And so some people say, wow, 25 years. And I probably would have thought, man, 25 years of doing this, and you're most proud of proving somebody didn't do something. I mean, it's not usually how we view law enforcement, but it truly was.

[Mariana]

I love that that's the case for you.

[Brad Beeler]

You have to view that. And I think there's been three or four cases like that that I feel most proud about is because that shows you're not skewing things one way or the other, is that we've put horns and halos on people very, very quickly. And I know I've made that mistake multiple times. I remember doing a search warrant not too long ago. And we walk into the house, it was a child sexual abuse material case. And my partner Ryan and I come into the kitchen, and there's a Chihuahua and a pit bull. Now, there's stereotypes about both those dogs. One's a little yappy, the other one might hurt you if it's got a bad background. So I don't want to have to hurt a dog. I love dogs. I don't have a taser with me. I don't have animal control with me. If it starts attacking me, my partner, I may have to shoot it. So my front sight focus is on that pit bull. What does the Chihuahua do? It comes around behind me, jumps up and grabs me. My testicles.

[Mariana]

Oh.

[Brad Beeler]

Oh, yeah. Literally. And thankfully, the Duluth trading Company and their fire hose material pants saved me. But this Chihuahua was going crazy and I had to holster up. I had to remove it.

[Mariana]

What was your friend doing?

[Brad Beeler]

Your laughing? I'm sure he was laughing. And he, to this day, of course, he came and took pictures of everything. But it just goes to show you, I put horns and halos on the wrong thing. And that was a metaphor. But it happened. But not too long before that, I'd worked a biker case, and I don't know if you've talked to any bikers.

[Mariana]

I have. Yeah, we did a story about.

[Brad Beeler]

So you get it, you understand the 1 percenters, the hangarounds, the prospects, how all that works. So we had a missing female who was dating two members of the motorcycle gang. It was now a motorcycle gang. One person was a 1%.

[Mariana]

Sorry, what was the motorcycle gang?

[Brad Beeler]

It was. I believe it was the Outlaws.

[Mariana]

Okay.

[Brad Beeler]

And we had a 1 percenter, which for your listeners, the 1 percenters coined in the 50s. 99% of bikers do the right thing by the law.

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

One percent break the law. Or, you know, I'm sure I could go into much more detail, but I didn't.

[Mariana]

They're proudly outlaws.

[Brad Beeler]

Proudly Outlaws. And this guy, you know, we're in near Hollywood here where we're taping this. He was the Hollywood typecast version. If we were going to do sons of anarchy 2, he would be the person that would be your villain. 64230. It's definitely our guy. The other guy. 5613, prospect. Look like an accountant. Okay, so who are you going to polygraph first? They both are best friends. So I'm thinking, you know what? I'll polygraph this guy first because he probably saw something.

[Mariana]

The little guy. Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

And then I'll flip him into the big guy.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

Big guy's not going to tell me anything.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

He's a 1 percenter. So I asked the little guy, I said, you know, my question on the polygraph was around participation in the disappearance. He failed. But I put a, you know, halo on him. So I think he probably heard about it. Accessory after the fact. So I'm theming him, like, hey, let me protect you. I know you're probably afraid of this guy. I've seen this before. He's like, brad, that's not it. And he keeps saying, brad, that's not it. But I'm not listening. And that's the problem. I'm just. I have a preconceived notion. Luckily, a detective outside the room, she hears this, and she hears, that's not it. She knocks on the door, Brett, can I chat with him for a second? And the greatest return on any investment of any interrogation I've ever seen. She says, john, you keep saying that's not it. What is it? I killed her. Cut her up in six pieces and threw in the river. I'll take you to where it's at. And it was said just like that. I was asking the wrong questions. I'd made the wrong assumptions. And it came back to haunt me. So now I realize I want to make a great first impression. I want to have a great handshake. I want a ventrally front. I want to give an eyebrow flash. I want to have soft eyes. I want to kick my head over to the side to expose my karate. There's science behind this, but I don't. Other than personal safety. Don't rely on first impressions. If you're walking down a dark alley, you hear a bottle break. First impression, law enforcement, you're walking up to a car, something's not right. Rely on the first impression. But you go out on a date, second date, third date, and you say, it's. My gut says this, be careful. It's bias. A lot of times that's affecting you. It's not your. Your first instinct.

[Mariana]

You mentioned that woman that was working with you. Law enforcement. What do you see as the difference between women and interviewing and men interviewing?

[Brad Beeler]

Women are so much better than men. And I say that. Yeah, well, I mean, it's true. Like you can be a chameleon. I saw this early on. We had an agent, she's. She's since retired, written a book, very, very successful. Evie Pompous. And Evie, when you would work with her, she could be amazingly, you know, docile. And then she could flip the script, right? She could. She was a Crayola box. And she could be that I'm a larger guy that's bald. Right. There are certain situations and. And I would say this definitely affected me. I was in St. Louis when the riots happened. After the, the case there with the. The shooting of Michael Brown in that I perceived that people weren't going to like me because of my color. And I changed the way I acted. Instead of just really realizing that respect is universal. And if you just treat people with respect, it doesn't matter your race.

[Mariana]

They look to Treat you with respect. Look at.

[Brad Beeler]

Look at the World Cup. Okay. After the game, what do the Portuguese do with the Spanish? What are the.

[Mariana]

What do they.

[Brad Beeler]

They take off their jerseys. Professional respect.

[Mariana]

Right. Except the Argentines.

[Brad Beeler]

Except. Except the Argentines. A little bit of a fight there. So out of 100 games, we had 99 instances of respect. But, yeah, I definitely.

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

Is that. I think women have that ability to show respect a little bit easier. They have the ability, like, I would work a lot of what we used to call shaken baby cases. Now we call them traumatic brain injury cases. And I always had in the back of my mind, especially if I was talking to the mother or the. In the situation, I always had in the back of my mind, she might be in a abusive relationship, and I might be a trigger for her because I look like that abuser. And how is that affecting the possibility polygraph results? So I think I loved having. We would do a lot of our interviews with two people, and what I found is a lot of times the female would get more information than I would.

[Mariana]

Yeah. It's interesting because I say that all the time, how being a woman is actually my superpower. I think we're underestimated. We're also seen as less threatening sometimes. But I also think it's what. It goes back to what we were talking about, which is empathy. You know, this idea that you're trying to show somebody because you are trying. Know that you actually care, and you're actually trying to understand this. This person, that we just come with more empathy.

[Brad Beeler]

And I think that I would agree with that. And once again, I don't want to take it back to tribal society and hunter gathers and this and the other. But men typically lie about their prowess. Men lie because they want to show I'm valuable to the tribe. Women, a lot of times, lie to keep the tribe together, and that's where the empathy comes in. And I think they're able to do that a lot better than men as interrogators.

[Mariana]

Brad, how did you. I want to get into polygraphing in general because there's so many questions about the machine itself. How does it work and can you actually trick it or all those questions. But I also want to know, how did you get into law enforcement? You studied criminology, but why were you interested in getting into man?

[Brad Beeler]

I grew up, you know, in the 70s, so in the early 80s, we were hit with chips, punch, and John Baker and a team and Scooby Doo and Nancy Drew novels as a kid. Right. So it was so Pure. Right. Like, in 30 minutes, we'd solved the world's biggest case. In four seasons of the A team, thousands and million, maybe millions of rounds were shot at bad guys, and not one person was hurt.

[Mariana]

That's so true.

[Brad Beeler]

Right. And that your view of law enforcement was so, like, you're the person with the white hat coming in to solve. And I remember I started out in a small pond in my small town in Union, Missouri, and I went to the college that my dad taught at, still a small pond, local college, and I found some initial success there, and I started taking criminology classes, and I continued to play soccer, and then I went to the larger school. But interviewing the people in the jail was amazing for me, and it really opened my eyes. Taking criminology was amazing, but it was the internship I have with the Secret Service. When I saw the men and women and I saw them traveling all over the world, I saw a lot of them like myself. We didn't go the military route, so how can we serve our country? And I just saw. You know, I would watch the video of Tim McCarthy, who took the bullet for Reagan in 81, and you see how he just made himself big. Right. And I just thought that was so stoic. And I bought off on the recruiting brochure. Right. Yeah. I'm gonna be on Air Force One. You're gonna be doing this. I'm gonna be standing in the stairwell a lot next to a dumpster and getting wet.

[Mariana]

Were your parents proud about that?

[Brad Beeler]

They were.

[Mariana]

They were happy about that.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, they were. My family is very big into public service, and they always have been, so I think they like that aspect of it. I was the first not to be a teacher, so.

[Mariana]

Wow. And then at the beginning of your career, you worked a lot in counterfeiting. Right. Which I think you mentioned it already. Most people don't know the Secret Service. It's the agency responsible for counterfeiting, for fighting counterfeiting. So tell me about that, and particularly the one case, the King of Counterfeit.

[Brad Beeler]

Oh, the King of Counterfeit. Yeah. Art Williams.

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

So literally the first case I got. And was he really. The first case is so much about. And I'm sure you've talked a lot.

[Mariana]

And also, can you explain to me you. You briefly explained the history of the Secret Service, but why is it that it's the Secret Service that's going up?

[Brad Beeler]

Sure.

[Mariana]

That whole thing.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah. Yes. I'll. I'll paint a picture. So, you know, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, a couple days before his assassination, gets together with Alan Pinkerton. And the problem was about one third of all counter or genuine currency at the time was counterfeit.

[Mariana]

A third? A third. That's crazy.

[Brad Beeler]

So you can imagine people, I mean it's, it's messing with trends, you know, transactions because nobody believes what they're doing is real. So they got together and said we need to form a foundation of people that can go throughout the world and suppress this and be quote unquote worthy of trust and confidence. That's where the motto comes from. So it was that way for the first 40 years until McKinley was assassinated in 1901. And then they said we need somebody to step in. I think at the time it was Postal inspection service and U.S. marshals were the only other federal agencies that were available. And. And so we kind of filled that void. And then we started doing anti corruption, we started doing fraud investigations. We started doing stuff against the KKK to suppress that. So it was a very broad. It was. This was before the FBI and our first nine of our agents actually went over to establish the Bureau of Investigation that became the FBI in World War II. We did espionage work then. It evolved after unfortunately 1963 when Kennedy was assassinated, where we started taking more protective measures than after RFK was assassinated. So mission creep has been something that we've always continued to do throughout time but.

[Mariana]

And they're like three or four thousand agents right now.

[Brad Beeler]

I would say that's probably pretty accurate. I know we had a. I was lucky in 1999 when I got hired. We had a big influx of people get hired. So a lot of the people in my vintage are retiring and because of the World cup, because of the Olympics coming coming up where they're hiring. And so it's a great, it's great timing if you want to get hired, is that we are really, you know, it's tough to be in law enforcement and it's a tough job because it all low. All roads typically lead to Washington D.C. and or a big city. So it's a difficult job because it's hard to say to some people you're going to change your entire life. You're going to move here, you're going to move there. But it's a very rewarding job. And the thing I found great about it was it was that dual role. It's not just protection. I know after Butler there's been a lot of talk about you just need to focus on protection.

[Mariana]

Butler being the Trump assassination.

[Brad Beeler]

The Trump assassination, yeah. Is that if you just did protection, you would, would never get somebody through a 25 year career, you would lose your mind, your divorce rate would be through the roof. You have to have some other skill set. And I learned really early on how the dual role mission works. And that counterfeit for me was so much fun because it was the closest thing a Secret Service agent will work to drugs. All right. And that you work informants, you go out and interview people, you do deals, things like that. It less and less. More so. Because when's the last time you paid for something with cash?

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

So it's, it's definitely going downhill a little bit. But my first case, and so much of people you probably podcast, it's getting something put on your desk instead of it got a somebody else's desk. It was just random timing and it was this note that, you know, if you look at, if you look at money.

[Mariana]

Are you going to show me, see

[Brad Beeler]

if I can get my wallet out? I won't show you counterfeit.

[Mariana]

Oh, wait, I. Oh no. Did you see this, by the way? So hanging behind me is this, is, this was like the bat. So we interviewed a counterfeiter in Peru. We did a story, was actually a pilot episode for Traffic. It was about counterfeit money and Peru. And Peru, as you know, is one of the countries or the country in the world with the biggest amount and the best counterfeiters in the world. And so we interviewed like the top. He was, he was the finisher. So he's the guy who finishes the bills. Yeah. So I'm getting ahead of my time. I'll tell you, I'll tell you about it in a second. I. First I want to hear your story and then I'll tell you about my interview because I think.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, it, no, it is fascinating. And you know, Peru and Colombia before that, we've always had agents there because those same drug networks are some ways in which counterfeit can come in.

[Mariana]

We were trying to get the Secret Service to work with us there. They didn't. Bastards.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, I'm sorry about that. It's, you know, so genuine currency. It's. It's not paper, it's cloth. 75% cotton.

[Mariana]

25% if I touch it. Yeah. So I'm looking at a $20 bill and yeah, most people think it's paper, but like you said, it's cloth. Yeah, yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

And that's why we can wash it. Right, right. Is that the company up in the Northeast that makes it, that has made it for decades, they make that special

[Mariana]

blend and it only comes from there. It only comes from this one place.

[Brad Beeler]

Right.

[Mariana]

They're not allowed to sell it to anyone else. Exactly. Because of counterfeiting. So it's incredibly difficult to replicate. It's. And it's not just the touch, it's the smell, it's everything. The sound that it makes, it's been.

[Brad Beeler]

And I can talk about these things because they've been reported. But the supernote, when it was found, I think I believe it was a teller in Singapore. The feel she just noticed, the feeling because she just dealt with money every day, is that it's very, very hard to duplicate the feel of genuine currency. And so 75%, 25% linen. Then obviously there's color shifting ink. You know what a lot of people do is they hold it up and they see the watermark. Right. Or they see the security thread. There's other things obviously that, that we put in there as well that are very helpful in that. The first case that I had, we had an individual that was trying to defeat this, this note. And what he did is he had a decent quality note. It wasn't real paper, it wasn't anything like that. But what he did is he took advantage of people's short cuts that they make, meaning that looks good or worse yet, the pen. And he would pass it when people were busy. He'd do it around the holiday times and he would hit high traffic areas and he would never do it around Chicago, where he was from. He would go for 500 miles away and then he would come back and he had this Robin Hood mentality where all the stuff he'd buy, take $100 bill and he'd buy a $10 item and his four or five people that were with him would do all the same thing. And they put it all in a truck and when they get back they donate it all to the Goodwill. And that was their once again their penance. They made themselves feel good. So this guy was a ghost. All I knew his name was Art

[Mariana]

and his name was Art.

[Brad Beeler]

I think one of the mid level people who he'd sold money to had got his name at least. And he didn't know it as Arthur, he knew it as Art. And I had him describe it to me and he's like, he looks like he's about your age. Actually he looks a lot like you, but he's got glasses. I said, okay, that's helpful. So but that's all we knew. And we were almost getting ready to close out the case because we had really no investigative leads to go on. And it was about 2:30 in the morning one day on a Saturday. And that's never a good time to get a phone call. And we get a phone call at the house. And I was there, duty agent at the time. And it was like, hey, we got this guy down here at the whatever precinct, 18th precinct in Chicago. You know, he's got these bills. And I said, can you describe the bills to me? And he's like, yeah, he's like, they come apart. And I go, what do you mean? He goes, well, they're, they pull apart. They're glued together. Well, that was what he was doing is he was taking. I won't get into specifics, but he was taking paper that was about half the diameter of genuine currency. And he was gluing it together and he was putting something that simulated a watermark and a thread and you know, as the color shifting ink. And he was doing certain things to try to throw off the pen. So things in which normal people. It wasn't once again a good quality note. If you looked at it, you would know it's counterfeit. But people don't look at it right. And I said, well, what's his name? They said, Arthur Williams Jr. I said, I will be right there. Now. By the time I got down, there had been a couple hours since he had been picked up. And he got picked up at the House of Blues Hotel in Chicago. And I talked to the responding officers and I go in to talk to him. But everybody had said he's got an ego. And I didn't really view his egos. Maybe it's just pride. He was very proud of his note. He viewed it as art. And so of course I can't say that I drove in there in my 1991 Plymouth acclaim. Okay, My G ride my government car at the time. We didn't have a lot of money back then. The secret service didn't. So I told him I flew in on the gulf stream from D.C. or right. Which, you know, he kind of liked that. And then I had him teach me. He knew he got caught red handed. I think he had $30,000 in counterfeit. And I said, how do you do it, dude, this is phenomenal stuff. And he taught me, told me everything. Where he printed it, he didn't print in Chicago, he printed it downstate. He had four or five people he worked with. He always went to certain locations. He never hit the same pl. He, he did things what he think was smart. Well, unfortunately there were some issues with the case from the standpoint of the responding officers. And they would Put down their police report that they saw this stuff in plain sight. The defense attorney was able to prove that you must have stepped a couple feet into the room to see where it was. So we got off, went to Alaska, met with his father, who he hadn't seen in 30 years, and they started printing together together. And his dad got caught and his dad gave up his son. So his son gets three years. You know, he had said when I first interviewed him, hey, I'm gonna get a book deal. I'm get a movie deal. I'm sure you've heard that before, right? So that's what I was thinking. Yeah. Okay, sure. Art. Well, about two and a half years, a guy named Eric, case agent, ultimately, who became the case. She called me, goes, hey, remember that guy that said he was this? And this? Go to Union Station, go to the bookstore, get the Rolling Stone magazine.

[Mariana]

No way.

[Brad Beeler]

And I do. And Jason Kirsten wrote this amazing article with his face on a hundred dollar bill, like a eight or nine page spread, calling him the can counterfeit.

[Mariana]

That's really.

[Brad Beeler]

And I was like, oh, my gosh. Right. And of course in the article, he said, oh. And I didn't tell those agents anything, which I can't win. Now we lose the case. He says, I didn't confess to me. And I said, I got the receipts.

[Mariana]

So

[Brad Beeler]

Eric did a great job of setting up surveillance, getting back on him, getting some informants, getting some buys into him. And one day his son, who was a white rapper, Art III, was 15 and got upset at his dad not buying him studio time with real money. So his son went and tried trying his hand at counterfeit. And he wasn't as good as his dad. So he went downstairs and he threw, I think it was a couple thousand dollars on the hood of a Chicago police car that was driving by Chicago police. Guy gets out at first, he looks at the money. Why are you throwing genuine money on the car? And then he looks at the serial numbers. They're all the same. So our counter surveillance team came out of roll consent search. We arrest Art and his son. He comes down. I've got to wait a little bit because now I have to say that I'm flying in on the. The new Gulf Stream, probably Gulf Stream 5 now.

[Mariana]

The G5.

[Brad Beeler]

The G5, yeah. And I interviewed his son first, and his son handed up his dad. So in the course of three years, or I'm sorry, his. Yeah, his son handed up Art. So in the course of three years, his father and now his son had both confessed and the thing I always appreciate about art is he always took it. In his first case, he said it was all on him. He wrote a letter to his wife, hey, don't tell them anything, because it's all on me. I'm taking the whole thing. And he did it here, too. He didn't put anything on his son. He took it all. So I give him extreme credit for that. So, of course, I came in and I had him teach me again, and I made sure I had him sign the Rolling Stone article. And he put to Brad, you got me. Arthur Williams.

[Mariana]

Feel good about him.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah. It was like validation. Right. Like, some people are like, oh, that's you collecting a scalp. No, it was. I truly think he enjoyed that.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

And of course, I've got it up on my wall. But. But the interesting thing. And, you know, it'd be an interesting story if it stopped there, but he. Because he got booked deals after that, but he went to jail for eight years. His son stayed in the business. Got arrested by Secret Service in Chicago. And the crazy thing is, is they were both in the same cell in the federal prison in Arkansas, son and father.

[Mariana]

Wow.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah. And art turned his life around. He took up art, literal art, over those eight years. Started off just with little pencil drawings. I think he always had a little aptitude towards it. The next thing you know, he's doing foreign currency. Then he's doing US Currency with other people's faces on it. The next thing you know, he's got an art studio, and now he's got an art studio on the north side of Chicago. Doing very, very well, making lots of money.

[Mariana]

So his art is actually currency. Like, he's actually doing, like, big.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah. And when I retired, kind of a mutual friend put us in contact with one another, and I'm rooting for him because counterfeit has one of the highest levels of recidivism out there.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

So I'm hoping he sticks to that kind of art and doesn't go back to the easy way, but he's doing very, very successful. So it's a really, really good redemption story.

[Mariana]

Wow. So the guy that I interviewed, he was known as the finisher because his job was, you know, there was the printer when there was the designer, the graphic designer, and then there was a printer. And then the. The last guy on the thing, on the stepping stool is. It was the finisher and he was the guy. Yeah. That had to make it feel and smell and look like. And he. He would use, like, actually this porridge that doesn't exist here in the US But I. I grew up with, which is called my Sienna. It's like a white powdery thing that you sort of put in the stove with hot milk. And it makes it. It's delicious actually. But he would use that powder. I couldn't believe it when he was showing us like the. What he uses to finish these bills and his. You, I mean, you should have seen, which I'm sure when you were talking about art is probably the same. This guy was just so excited. He had never. Not even his family, not his wife, no one knew what he did. He was a driver during the day, taxi driver during the day, and a counterfeiter by night. And nobody, apart from the people the network that he worked with, knew that he was the best finisher in all of Peru. And. Yeah, and so he had this opportunity with a mask to tell us and show off and, and you, you should have seen the, the joy of it. It's like me talking about my work.

[Brad Beeler]

Are you talking about yours? Right, but I think some of that's a testament to you too, because I think you were honestly interested in it.

[Mariana]

Yeah, I was.

[Brad Beeler]

And he feeds off of that, of course. And he feels like he's teaching you and you're interested in it. So you were a good pupil for him to teach.

[Mariana]

Yeah, I mean, it was a fascinating conversation. Wow. Okay, so counterfeiting. And then, and then, and then. Tell me, where did that go from there? After, after that case?

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, you know, I. Right after that, I. I didn't really have any ideas about polygraph, but I had this case in Illinois, it was during the election of 2000, so I was on the dubious protected detail. We had one of our agents that got hurt, and I was about 30 pounds lighter at the time, about 25 years ago as well, so I was a much better runner. So I filled in that. And that was.

[Mariana]

And this was George W. Bush.

[Brad Beeler]

George W. Bush during the hanging chad and all that. And that was, you know, as a, as a kid that, you know, read the recruiting brochure, this was great. You're on the 727, you're on Leno one day, you're on Letterman the next day, traveling all over. It was the Secret Service experience. Right. So that's where that started off. But in between one of those breaks, I got this protective intelligence advance. And what that is is usually it's a pretty laid back gig where you do a of lot, lot of paperwork, a lot of preparation, and then on game day we'll do certain things as well. Inevitably, nine o' clock that night, there's a phone call from the police department. Hey, the Republican local headquarters just got a call from somebody saying he's a sniper. He's going to take out W the next day. Oh my gosh. Right. Like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm 25 years old, I'm brand new to the job. Wet behind the ears. Definitely is. We had this agent named Bill and Bill had been around forever. If you could think what would Colombo look like if he was a secret service agent. That is him. And Bill's like, I got you, kid. So we go out and it's a payphone, which some of your listeners may not know what a payphone is. Right. It's an actual payphone with one of those little cords on it. Is that nothing around strip mall. We don't have the Flock cameras and all the ring doorbell cameras to go by, but we know the phone call came from this phone. There's a bunch of cigarettes around. There's a trash can and that's it. I'm like, this is a dead end, right? Bill cuts the phone off the, the handle off of that, collects it for potential prints. This is really early in DNA, so it's not nothing we would have been able to turn around. But he kicks over the trash can. He starts looking through the trash can. There's dirty diapers, there's. It's terrible, right? I'm like, what are you doing? A little tiny styrofoam cup with a yellow piece of paper in it. He opens up it up and it's the phone number to the Republican headquarters. So he bags that up because now you know that person was here. But there's nothing around. There's a little public supermarket maybe a block and a half away. So get the idea, let's go down there and talk to the manager. Maybe they have some footage in around that time that shows somebody we knew the voice was between 50 and 70 year old man. But that's all we had on that. So we go asking about footage. But while we're in the manager's office and the little break room, Bill sees this yellow piece of paper next to the hanging up next to the phone that has a yellow piece of paper ripped off. That's the same exact of the found one he found in the styrofoam cup. So now we know the person is here. And as this has happened in real time, this is like a scenario at the Federal Law Enforcement training Center that we get in training, where you're like, this would never happen this way. It's like a movie, right? And so the manager's there and he's like, hey, this has the guy's handwriting on it. What people did you have working here earlier today that were fit this demographic? And he goes, there's three people that were in that age range that were males. Do you have employment apps? Yep, we got their employment apps. They were handwritten. Okay. Once again, going back to training, when you're doing handwriting analysis, you couldn't make it up. The guy's got a layover on his twos and a strike through on his sevens. And we're like, okay, we know where he lives now. So it's 10:30, 11:00 clock now. We go over to the house, Midwestern house. And the wife opens the door and she's probably in her 70s. Hi, how you doing? Bill's got that charm. He's like, well, ma', am, you know, we'd like to speak with your husband. Okay. Can I get you something to drink? He's like, you might want to put on a pot of coffee. We might be here for a little bit. Sure. She goes back and we walk in, and I remember vividly looking down the hallway and this guy's like, tying fishing ties or something very Norman Rock Welling. And at the time. And as he's walking there, because my focus is completely on him, you know, I. All I know is this guy wants to potentially hurt our protectee. But Bill has the situational awareness. He looks at these two pictures on the wall as he's walking, and one is what's obviously a Marine Corps photo from Vietnam, which I view as validation for what his call came about. Being a sniper, but also a wedding photo around the same time frame to the same woman that just answered the door. And Bill, how he's able to use that information in real time. As he goes up, he identifies herself. I'm Brad. This is Bill. Or I'm Bill. He goes, do you know what the Secret Service does? He does, we stop counterfeit money. We stop people from trying to hurt people we protect. He asked the guy, he goes, have you been printing any counterfeit money recently? The guy goes, no. And he goes, well, now you know why I'm here. And he goes, I hope what we can come to in the next couple minutes is that you got. Probably got in a heated political discussion and you said something you later regretted. And that I see that you serve this country with very few people do. Says to me a lot about the honor you have and the core military values you have. And I see that you've been married to the same woman for a long period of time, and she's wonderful. He goes, so that says to me, you have some great core values. And what I'd like to hope is you make a really good choice right now and tell us what really happened.

[Mariana]

So good. Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

And he gave it up right then. And I was just like that to me was like, I want to talk to human beings like that with that level of confidence. So that led me into polygraph. Six months of training and then 17 years.

[Mariana]

What's the training for polygraph?

[Brad Beeler]

So we go to what's called the national center of Credibility Assessment. All federal polygraph examiners go there. And it's about a three month training program. And then we have an extensive internship after that. So learning the different types of tests we would do on applicants, criminal tests. So it's very regulated. It's very intense. Psychologically, physiologically, what we learn about as far as how the instrument works.

[Mariana]

Are there people who fail or not good at it?

[Brad Beeler]

There are definitely we. I don't know what the percentages are, but there are definitely people that get washed out. Because, you know, a lot of times you have, you haven't been in college in a while and you're thrown, you know, graduate level physiology. And you got to trace the, the blood through the entire body type stuff is that. That can be challenging to some.

[Mariana]

Can you tell me exactly how it works? Like how does a machine work?

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, so you have the components. You know, very little has changed since 1939. Um, the first federal polygraph was a secret service agent. And he did a two, like a two or three day school in Chicago. And I'll tell you just a real quick story about that. Is 1939, Secret Service agent, he's in New York and somebody was counterfeiting like nickels, which back in the time, you know, I think it's a nickel, it was like a dollar more nowadays, right? So this person's counterfeiting nickels and they can't catch this person. And it's like the French Connection. They surveil him through streetcars and all this stuff to a tenement building that's eight stories high and eight stories wide, or eight rooms wide. But they don't see what floor he went in or what room he in. But when he comes out, he's got pockets of these counterfeit. And this is pre Miranda. Okay. So law enforcement is a little different. I'll just Leave it at that. So they, they did what was called like a silent answer guilty knowledge test where they hooked him up to the components. We say attach the components to him. And they recorded his physiology. And they asked him, was it on the floor one, floor two, floor three, all the way up to eight. And they said, was it room A all the way to H? And his physiology peaked at room four, F, whatever it was. And the agents go there, kick in the door. There's the counterfeit operation. Now you can imagine that's the first time that instrument was ever used by federal enforcement. Can you imagine what godlike powers they must have thought that they had in 1939?

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

So that was the first time we used polygraph from a Secret Service standpoint. So it was something that we always use in our protective mission on our applicants and on criminal tests. But the instrument, it has three components. It monitors and records blood pressure and heart rate. It looks at the rise and fall of your chest, your, your numa, your. With the pneumographs, and then it records galvanic skin response. So basically sweat gland activity and resistance.

[Mariana]

So it looks my heart started beating faster just by talking about this, but just by, like me imagining being questioned with one of these things.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mariana]

And do you, do you also, when you're training for it, do you also have to be put on, hooked on or what is it attached to you?

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah. And you also have to get a different level of clearance. So you've got to go through another, another polygraph, which is always nerve wracking.

[Mariana]

Right. And, and you said they're about 90 accurate. Right?

[Brad Beeler]

Well, let me, let me say this. It depends on the format, it depends on the training, depends on a lot of things. Is that the research we've done. So the, the biggest studies that have ever been done on ability to detect deception is 54. What I mean by that is non polygraph. So we took college students, judges, attorneys, FBI, Secret Service agents, and the mean was 54. Secret Service came about 75.

[Mariana]

Right. This was without a polygraph. By asking questions, if you're able to detect if a person is lying or not.

[Brad Beeler]

Correct. When you bring polygraph into the mix, you're Getting in the mid-80s, closer to 90 if done in the perfect conditions. The problem with polygraph, and inevitably you're going to get comments. Polygraph sucks. It's pseudoscience. I beat one. Whatever.

[Mariana]

Whatever.

[Brad Beeler]

Right. Like it happens anytime I talk about it, I get it. Because many people's experience with polygraph is Jerry Springer. Are you the father type stuff, when done in those circumstances, it's terrible. All right? I have to have right time, right place, guardrails, quality control. And when we do that, it's a great force multiplier. But you use it as a tool. Use it as something to augment. You use it to further an investigation. You don't use it as you're going to go to jail for the rest of your life. And that's what people misunderstand. It's never used that way. But the things that it has uncovered from our applicant standpoint, murder, robbery, rape, bestiality. Things in which you're like, why would somebody come in and admit that without polygraph, that person is getting on the job? Because think about a standard background check. People go to neighbors. What do neighbors say when they interview serial killers? Neighbors, oh, Ted was such a wonderful young boy. Right? Is that polygraph shows that second life that people have. And once again, I'm not an acolyte to it. I understand its limitations. But when used in the right conditions, it's. It's an amazing tool, but it's just a tool.

[Mariana]

Is it possible to beat a polygraph in the right conditions, then? I think is the question.

[Brad Beeler]

I mean, I would say this, is that people have been trying to do that for. For generations. People try to throw it off. I think trained examiners are very good at seeing what normal physiology is and what abnormal physiology is.

[Mariana]

What happens with the test? Like, tell me, explain to me what happens when somebody is lying. Okay, what are you seeing? Yes, I know physically, what happens? What are you seeing?

[Brad Beeler]

I got to be very careful with this. So I'm seeing on my side a series of physiological reactions. Okay? Anybody can Google that, and it'll show you what physiological reactions are that are characterized as being deceptive. So I get this question a lot. When I was traveling as a polygraph examiner, I'd have my polygraph equipment with me, and as a federal agent, you'd board the plane first or, you know, before anybody else boarded, because you're traveling armed. And you talk to the pilot, and the pilot be like, where are you going? I'm going to Toledo. What are you doing doing a polygraph? Polygraph, man, I heard those things are inaccurate, and you could beat him. And I said, well, I said, a lot of people got on this plane, and the last time TSA was checked, they were about 95% effective. I said, so there's a 5% chance. They go, oh, I. I see where you're going with this. And I said, when it comes to beating it. I said, look, could somebody learn how to fly this plane from just reading the manual? And they go, no. I said, why? They said, well, you can read the manual, but if you don't have the flight time and you don't see what pulling back on the throttle does to your elevation or this, he goes, you're going to fly into a mountain. I said, okay. I said, somebody can read on how to mess with a polygraph, but they don't see what I'm seeing. They don't see the biofeedback that I'm seeing. So they think what they're doing, they're either doing too much or too little. I know what normal is when I don't see with normal. That's. That's. That's the outlier.

[Mariana]

Right. So the person doing the polgraph exam is even more important than the 100 in every way.

[Brad Beeler]

You don't beat the instrument, you beat the person. And same thing with the information collection. I have to ask you the right questions, you know, to get the right results, result. If I ask you the wrong questions. That's why a lot of times with attorney tests, you know, you could. An examiner could get someone to pass. You could get O.J. simpson to pass, you could get somebody else to pass a polygraph if you ask certain questions like, did you intentionally kill that person? Oh, I didn't intentionally kill them. Right, right. So it's all in how it's phrased.

[Mariana]

And what about all those. I think it's become, like, so popular right. In. In Hollywood, but also, like, I've seen YouTube videos of this. Like, I think it was Oceans 11, where the guy, if he moves his leg, like he thinks he's going to beat the polygraph, and there's all these YouTube videos of how to beat it. Is any of that. Right. Any of that real possible?

[Brad Beeler]

There's. Let me put it this way. I would assume there is an exponentially higher amount of people that get caught and disqualified from the process in doing things. So innocent people that went down a rabbit hole thought that there's no other choice. I've read all the press about polygraph, and if I don't do this, this bad thing's going to happen. And as a result, they do something that we see, we call, we discontinue them from the process versus people that were actual false positives.

[Mariana]

Huh. Interesting. Just.

[Brad Beeler]

But once again, I'm saying that. And right now in the comment thread, people will be like, of course you said that. Polygraph stupid. Okay? That's fine. I totally understand. And there's going to be people that say, well, this person beat a polygraph and they became a spy. Well, it's all in how you test them. A lot of people become spies after they go through a polygraph and in between polygraphs.

[Mariana]

Right. One more question about it, which is what about like people who are psychos and who, like, they don't.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, yeah, I get that. I get that question a lot. Like what happens if they're, if they're just mentally, you know, off and.

[Mariana]

Yeah, and so they don't feel the same, they don't have the same physical,

[Brad Beeler]

you know, a lot of the people. And, and this is more traditionally because you've seen the threat environment change so much is that we used to deal with crazy people all the time. And what I mean by crazy people all the time is medication used to be different. Friction was a lot more in the social space. Meaning if we're in a bar having a political conversation and somebody starts saying stupid stuff, stuff, people are going to report that person or they're going to say, hey, John, quit being stupid. We were less of an echo chamber, we were less online. And as a result of that, now you can just go into another chat room where you're not getting that friction.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

So I say all that to say, yes, let's say we have somebody that is mentally off, but I'm not typically going to test that person if they're that far gone because they're not going to be fit for a polygraph. Meaning if they don't know up is down, like if they're that crazy, I'm not going to be able to test them. But let's just say they're a little bit off there. They have some, they're on the spectrum somewhere, the mental health spectrum somewhere. Even if you're crazy, you still know if you pulled that trigger to shoot that person, you may have rationalized it, you may have said, you know, an alien told me to do it, but you still remember doing that. And that question is going to be, did you shoot that man?

[Mariana]

Right. But do you have, aren't there people who just don't have the same physical reactions?

[Brad Beeler]

Almost like cold blooded, right?

[Mariana]

Yes, that's what I meant.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah. So in certain aspects, you're going to have people that aren't going to respond as much. But the instrument, once again, I'll be careful how I talk about it. I'm going to tune that to a certain point. Like a magnetometer can be turned up and turned Down. Are we looking for a rifle? We looking for a handgun? We're looking for a paperclip.

[Mariana]

So wait, wait. Are you being careful with how you talk about it? Because there are secrets about how to operate this that you learned that a lot of people don't. Are.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, I mean, I just. You always want to be a little careful about. I always make sure that even if things are out in public, I don't want to provide that where somebody can have a mosaic of information and piece stuff together that could potentially help them on a polygraph. I always say to people, if you want to pass polygraph, get a good night's sleep, take whatever medications you're taking, don't do any research on polygraph, and be 100% honest. A lot of our applicants, they get this application, and on the application, that's the only thing we're testing you on previous criminal activity, drugs, national security issues. That's all we're testing you on. If you're 100% accurate on those forms, you will pass the polygraph. But what happens? Well, you know what? It was last December. You know what I'm going to put two years ago, it was when last time I used marijuana, because that doesn't look good if I say it was last December. You know what I got? I didn't really get fired from this job, but they told me they were going to fire me, so I won't really put that down.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

And what do you think is going to happen to them on the application form question or, you know, those types of things? So that's the advice. Be honest on your application forms. Don't do research, Get a good night's sleep and turn yourself over to the process, and chances are you're going to be good to go.

[Mariana]

Yeah. Yeah. Because that's right. You get polygraphed also for job. For jobs. And I'm sure you did.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah.

[Mariana]

As well. To get the job. Right. Yeah. This is, it's, it's fascinating. And yeah, none of this, these questions are to invalidate your work, I think. I think.

[Brad Beeler]

No, no, no. These are all great questions and they're fair questions. Right. I get these questions all the time. I get these questions on the Uber ride once again, with, with my guy on the way here. And, And I, I say the things. And, and. And once again, I understand there are valid concerns, and I would never want my life being a polygraph examiner to be determined whether I go to jail or not based upon.

[Mariana]

And that's why you don't think they should be Used in, in court. And why not? Because you don't think they're as accurate.

[Brad Beeler]

They're not perfect.

[Mariana]

Perfect.

[Brad Beeler]

Right. They're not DNA. Right. I mean, I would love it if we had an instrument that was one in one billion. Right. I'd love that. Now here's the problem. Nobody would ever take that test. Test. Why do people take a polygraph? They think they can beat it and they think it can't be used in court. So they come into the arena. Why do people go buy a car? Hey, honey, let's just go take a test drive. We're not going to buy a car today. What do they do? They end up buying a car. Right?

[Mariana]

Never go to the car.

[Brad Beeler]

Never go to the car. It's, it's true though. Influence principles. And this is not to demean anybody that sells cars, but they have all read how to Win Friends and influence people. They've read every sales material and they use Cialdini's influence with pretensils. You walk onto the lot. What do they do? Hey, what are you looking for today? Hey, what are the three things you're looking for in a car? You're saying, I want something dependable, I want something reliable. I want something that's safe. That's all you're going to hear for the rest of the day. You're going to hear your name a lot. They are going to reach in their pocket, get change out and they're going to go plunk that into the soda machine after they ask you, what do you want? And they're going to give that to you. And oh, he's such a nice guy. And all those influences, influence, principles, and they wear you down over time. And then you get hangry, hungry and angry. And the next thing you know, fine, we take the test drive and we buy the car.

[Mariana]

Definitely. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, never. I'll do all the work before you go to the car dealership. Just go there. It's a car. Sign the document. That's it. Absolutely. I've learned that.

[Brad Beeler]

And don't have it hard way.

[Mariana]

Yeah, exactly. Tell me about body language. I mean, taking away the polygraph, the machine itself, like, how can you. Because you were very good at this.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah.

[Mariana]

Tell me about body language. Like what, what are your telltale science?

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah. So I, I rely on a lot from Joe Navarro and Abby Morono, the experts in this field is it's not about detection of deception. Will there be some tells every once in a while? Sure. But body language is great for comfort, discomfort for hot and cold for reception of message. Meaning you were very, very good at this, right? Your eyes light up, you agree with people. Every once in a while you might throw your brow if you don't understand. Not in disagreement or container intent, but just, hey, Brad, I didn't catch that. So if I'm watching and I'm reading that, I know how to refine my message as I'm going. And then right now you've got your legs crossed, which a lot of females do, right? But that is not a confession position, right? So if somebody's arms are crossed and legs are crossed, I want to maybe mirror that slightly. So if you don't mind, and I don't know if we have a side shot here, but if you could cross your arms for me real quick.

[Mariana]

I actually crossed my arms.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, there you go. So let's say I said something you didn't like, right? And you were kind of judgy about that. You're like, I didn't like that. And I see that. That was interesting. And it's not cold in here. Okay. They told me your Portugal weather has been brought into the studio here, so I know it's not cold. It might be something that I just said. So don't say that again. Now, if I say something and you open up. She liked that. Rinse and repeat, right? And I can maybe walk that to a more conducive posture. So I won't hit the mic here, but this is a confession posture. Leaning forward, head down. This is how you are literally in a Catholic confessional. Forgive me, Father, for us. And that. That's not defiant. But if you had your arms really tight, hugging yourself, self soothing, that's something I want to break. And the way I would break that is. Can you go ahead and assume that posture again?

[Mariana]

Yeah, yeah, here I am.

[Brad Beeler]

So what I'll do is I don't want to immediately when you do that, mirror it, right? Because that's just people saying, see through that. And once people see you're manipulating them, you're gone. So I want to influence. So influence can be something where I might almost do that, where I cross at my ankles and I cross at my wrists. And then in about three minutes, I do that. And we're mammals, you're opening up. So, yeah, monkey see, monkey do, right? And then you open up and then I lean forward. And the best thing I always say to people, whether it's a parent talking, whether it be part of a negotiation, is I want to have a forward leaning position. Because if this is my default what we call fighting position. And I don't mean that in a bad way, but just how I communicate. If I am auto, if I'm closed up and you mirror that, you may be having great rapport, but you're assuming a body language that's horrible for me. So this is how I always sit when I talk to people. Because if you adopt this, what's the next thing you might do? I start looking at the ground. You start looking at the ground. And that's when the confession comes.

[Mariana]

Yeah. It's so good, Brad. And, you know, it's so funny because my dp, my director of photography is a French guy called Fred Menou, who I love. We travel all around the world together. And he's very. He's a perfectionist about how he frames his shots, right? So he'd spend, like, hours and hours making sure that I'm framed exactly how it needs to look the certain way. And the moment he'd start. Okay, let's roll. So start the recording. And I immediately. This is what I would do also trying not to hit the mic, but I would immediately. Because I'd be interviewing people, I'd immediately move forward, be like this. And showing interest. Yeah. And showing them. I am captivated by you, by your story, and I'm here to listen.

[Brad Beeler]

It's so respectful.

[Mariana]

The first thing I do, and he would get so mad. He's like, can you sit down for me? And I'd sit down. He was like, are you sure you're going to sit that way? I was like, I'm sure. And then the moment somebody sits. Sits across from me, I'm like, that's your default position.

[Brad Beeler]

Right? The same thing with. With drinks. So, like, a lot of times people will give water bottles to people. And one, I always like to have a coffee in my right hand because a warm, dry handshake is the best coating that you can do when you first meet. It's the first thing you do. It's the last thing you do in a professional relationship. And people remember the first and last things at a higher percentage. So I will warm my hand. I won't do it right when I'm walking up to them. I will put antiperspirant on my hands so that I don't ever have a sweaty, wet handshake. A dry, warm handshake automatically puts you at a very set stage. So if you have, like, a coffee that's in one of those Styrofoam cups, you hold it in your right hand. If you have something cold, you hold it in your left hand because we all shake with our right hand. And I come in at a 2 o' clock position because we all pronate. So by doing that, I show the whites of my palms. I show I don't have a weapon. It's easier for you to connect this way. And it's not a shake, it's just a brief hold.

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

With a smile on my face. And then I. I determine what you prefer to be called. Right. So how would you pronounce your name? How do you. How would you prefer to people pronounce your name?

[Mariana]

Mariana.

[Brad Beeler]

Mariana. If somebody says Mariana.

[Mariana]

Yeah, it's annoying.

[Brad Beeler]

Is that nails on the chalkboard?

[Mariana]

Yes.

[Brad Beeler]

So I want to find out if somebody's Frederick, but they go by Fred. If I call him Frederick, it's a problem.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

Now let's say you held that cup up. So keep hold if you don't mind. Hold that cup in your hand. That's your little blankie. Your will be your little, your little talisman to ward off the evil spirits. As we're talking, if I want to eliminate that, I can do the same thing. I'm talking, I'm talking to you. I sit it down.

[Mariana]

Yeah. Monkey do, monkey, monkey see, monkey see, monkey do.

[Brad Beeler]

That didn't work the first time. A couple minutes later I do it again. And you would be surprised at how you can potentially lead behavior. So as far as body language, that's how I view it. I don't view as detective deception because talking to law enforcement is a significant life event. And some of the best criminals and most dangerous people, they don't look dangerous. And they are very accustomed to not being nervous when in law enforcement because they are coldblooded. When you look at false confession videos, a lot of times the false read that the police have is because that person is nervous Talking to law enforcement. Look at Amanda Knox.

[Mariana]

Yeah. Podcast, right?

[Brad Beeler]

The Italian police had perspective issue. Her roommates murdered. What do you think that this foreigner in a foreign land is going to do? Do you think that she's going to be calm, cool and collected? No, she's going to be hugging and kissing the only person she knows, her boyfriend. But the perception that they had was all messed up. So from a body language standpoint, I want to be neutral to positive because neutral will typically code negative. Because 200,000 years ago we used body language to say, is that coming to hurt us? Explorers that came out west, they didn't know what kind of Indian tribe they were going to meet. So what did they instantly do when we get on a subway, what do we instantly do? Where should I sit down? Based upon body language? So I want to code positive. And by doing that, I'm more likely to get a halo on my head. And that's going to help because some people say, oh, Brad, you're just manipulating me. Doing that is going to help a victim and a witness open up. It's going to help an innocent person, show me that they're interested. If I come at them like this, right. If I frown and I'm being disrespectful, they're like, oh, my gosh. There's something called the Othello effect. And it happens when innocent people don't feel like they can be believed and they start getting nervous. And I'll get an example of that, is my wife and I bought a new car a few years ago, and a couple of days after we bought the car, my wife calls me. She goes, whose female sunglasses are under the right front seat of the car? I was like, I didn't pay any attention to it. When you look at detection and deception, we typically look at stimulus and response. Delay is a very big factor in deception. I had no delay in my answer. I was like, I don't know. Call John at the dealership. Maybe somebody left it under the seat when they were taking a test drive. Like, that was a perfect, innocent answer. Then she asked the question, like this. This. Whose female sunglasses that are not mine are under the right front seat of our car. Now that sounds like an accusation. Now here's the problem. I have no flipping clue whose female sunglasses are under the right front seat of the car. So what do I do? I repeat the question. I probably got a little nervous. I was like thinking to myself, oh, my God, I'm being accused of something that I didn't do. But I don't know how I'm going to prove that I didn't do it. And I'm talking like. Like this higher pitched, higher octave. Everything that we learn in this quasi science of that's deception. So I'm sure it's coding to her as this is a problem. Luckily, about 10 minutes later, the neighbor came over and said, hey, when we. When we drove in the car, I. Did I leave my.

[Mariana]

Yeah for you?

[Brad Beeler]

Yes. Right. Is that even though I had nothing to hide.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

My belief of not being believed. So you want to create the right environment where people where you can earn truthful answers to we. I want to go in looking for the truth, not going looking for a confession.

[Mariana]

Yeah, it's so good. And that applies not only to the work you do, the work that I do, but also to the. Our relationship with our kids. Like you said, you're up your husbands and wives, which is why your, Your book is actually so applicable. I started reading it. Thank you. I'm halfway through and it's so applicable. I, I learned a lot from it. And yeah, again, it can be applied to a lot of things. It's so interesting. How often does it happen? The most important thing and the job that you do, and funnily enough, in the job that I do too, is getting the person to talk. Right. And to say the truth, to tell us the truth. How often does it happen that you, your or your colleagues. Egos get in the way? Because this happens very much in my profession. It's happened with me too. Where you're trying. I'm going to give an example of myself, right. Where I. So I'm not badmouthing my, my journalism colleagues, but where I'm trying to show the show the world because I'm also being filmed that I'm very smart and I'm got a lot of knowledge or I can ask him really tough questions in this way. But it's actually not very beneficial for the goal at hand here, which is to get more information from this person and get to the truth. Right. How often does that happen?

[Brad Beeler]

Too much. And it hit me on a homicide case, child death, infant was killed at that time, probably seven, eight years on the job, had gotten into polygraph. My partner and I, we felt like we were 10 foot tall and bulletproof.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

We were the best. Right. And sometimes reality hits you pretty hard. And this was a investigation in which a baby had traumatic brain injury. The only two real people that had access were mom and dad. And just in talking to the police, looking at the case facts, it looked like dad was going to be good for them.

[Mariana]

This.

[Brad Beeler]

So we had no time constraints. There was no reason why we shouldn't have talked to mom first to try to get some background information. We're like, you know what? We're so good. So we're probably thinking to ourselves, we're just going to go talk to dad. And we talked to Daddy. Had issues on the test and we were so close. Body language was defeated. He was asking questions that were very, very close to him confessing. But we didn't really have that one, one little extra piece of information, the background, the why. And he lawyered up. And we went and we went to talk to the mom and she was showing genuine emotion but she was also a heroin addict and now she was getting dope sick. And I'm sure you've been around people that when people's norm is being high, they actually can give a lot of good information when they're dope sick. Yeah, it's a big problem. And so she's vomiting, she's. She's not able to really give us any good information. If we'd have talked to her three hours before, we probably would have got some really good information. But she tells us his name and she says baby and she says bat. And one of the items that they found was like a small souvenir baseball bat that had been looked like it had been cleaned with some type of astringent or something. And it really looked closely to how the baby was, was struck. If we'd have had that information, I guarantee that would have been the straw on the camel's back that would have got him to confess. And we failed that child that day because of our egos. Now the world has a weird way of coming back to, to get back to you. So the next night we get a call on the south side suburb of Chicago for double homicide. And there's two people in custody. 19 year old's never been in trouble with law enforcement. And there's an older individual that is very defiant against law enforcement, has had lots of contacts. If we would have been our self the day before, we'd immediately went to him. But instead we went to the 19 year old and we spent a lot of time with him. And we didn't just get the what, more importantly we got the why. And we found out it was because earlier in the day other gang members had come, he was minding his own business. They had tried to start a fight with him. He was a former Gold Glove boxer. He knocked all three of them out and then he urinated on them. Well, he was a gangster disciple. They were Latin Kings. If you urinate on three Latin Kings, they're probably going to want retribution. And so we find all that out. Then he says, here's where we cut up the gun on this band saw. But we couldn't get through the cylinder and we threw it here in the canal. So we knew and that's where the dive team went out. And so now we had that, now we're going to go talk to the defiant anti law enforcement individual. And my partner Brian just did a magnificent job of not letting his motions get involved, not going for it too quickly. This guy said every horrible thing that you could say about another human being to us because he's probably done that his entire life to get reactions from people. And Brian just kind of took it and let him vent and saw that it was performative. Gets through Miranda and then he doesn't. He says, look, I know this happened, but here's why it happened. And then he was his buddy. And what I mean by buddy is we have an acronym that we use. It's called Blame Outside forces. Understand but don't agree. Diminish the impact, not culpability. Demonstrate tactical empathy and focus on the why, not the what you be someone's. But buddy. And he was his buddy and he laid it all out there and he got this defiant individual to feel like, yeah, that that is why I did it. I'm not a horrible person. I didn't wake up at 8 o' clock in the morning with ill will in my heart. I was minding my own business. And then I heard they were going to come shoot up my house. And Brian said, look, it's like the OK Corral. They had to do something. You couldn't go to the police. You had to take care of business. Is that what you did? Yeah, that's what I did. You make feet people feel better.

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

For the bad thing that they did. So my old self, the day before, my ego would have gotten involved and I lost it. And then once again, my ego got to a point and then I went to the National Center Credibility Assessment where the FBI, the CIA, the NSA was and their subject matter experts. And I realized I don't know anything. And so I think in life, what I've learned in Brazilian Jiu jitsu, the hardest belt to gets the white belt. And that is the belt you get when you walk in and you realize, I want to learn something. There's things I don't know. And then it's the journey that you go on and you get beat up and beat up and beat up until finally you reach black belt. And then you reach black belt after 10, 12 years. And then the next belt's red belt, which you may not get for 30 or 40 years. Right. So I'm just a brown belt, but it's that journey. And for me, I learned then that I was just that white belt. And you, to be a good teacher, you have to be a good student. And I've learned more from my students than I've probably given them in knowledge.

[Mariana]

Yeah. But to always know that there is much more that you have that you can learn. Right. That you're never going to Be perfect at what you do.

[Brad Beeler]

1% better every day is what you have. I mean, Tiger woods had a swing coach during his best years. You know, the best baseball players have coaches and, and that's what you have to realize is that you got to get better every single day. And where I've had my mistakes in life and definitely in the job is we got complacent and you saw that. You know, I think with the Secret Service, anytime we've got involved in problems is because we've been complacent, overstretched, made assumptions. And when you make assumptions, you're overstretched and you're complacent and you're just going by a go by on what things should be. And you're not red teaming that and having people outside people looking assumptions. That's when unfortunate mistakes are made.

[Mariana]

Okay, so now you mentioned it, I have to ask, do you think that's what happened in Butler with the assassin?

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we were are so reliant on local law enforcement. And I say this as somebody that had retired when Butler happened. I completely just go on all the congressional reports, the volumes, hundreds and hundreds of pages of things. And when you see the breakdown there you had a security room, local security room that had a Secret Service personnel, and you had state police, and then you had a command post that had all the other entities. So you had two different command posts almost. And you had the AGR building, which was a sprawling complex. And we had an emergency tactical team, I think it was from Beaver county, from their sheriff department that was stationed in that building. They were just doing what they were asked to provide. We should have had uniform police officers and uniformed agents and you know, uniform vision personnel denying access into that. We had a great perimeter. The perimeter wasn't far enough and we didn't have people denying access to that. And then the comms, the communication, a call would come into the security room, one call would come in here. We get into this asynchronous communication where people are just texting each other in a group thread, but it's not going out on the radio and you have all that happening and then you've got people going from the Democratic National Convention to the Republican National Convention and then you're, you're relying on HSI and other people that maybe don't have as much. You know, it'd be like if I tried to do a human trafficking investigation for hsi. That's difficult. If I ask if I was going to work a domestic violence cases with a local police officer, I wouldn't know what I'm doing. So we're putting people in bad situations, and I think we were 100,000 protective events in a row without having an incident like that since 1981.

[Mariana]

But is that because you guys are really good at preventing it? Or, or, or is it because. Yeah, because. No, not. Not luck. But I would say, how many people are there out there that would actually want to or get that close to.

[Brad Beeler]

It's really, really tough to say in today's society. Right.

[Mariana]

I mean, wanting. I'm sure there's a lot of people, unfortunately. But how many people are out there that actually would go that step? Go as close.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah. And it's just, you know, when he put his drone. Drone up, our equipment was down. It just.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

Anything that could have went wrong, went wrong, went wrong.

[Mariana]

But it was also right. The local police department actually told the Secret Service that there was a guy on the roof and they decided not to hear them or not take action.

[Brad Beeler]

I don't believe that was the case.

[Mariana]

I think that was something that I read recently.

[Brad Beeler]

It was a local officers that went up to the roof, engaged crux, jumped off the roof.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

And they responded, I believe, to their SUV to obtain an assault rifle. The problem was, is that we're not all on the same comms at the time. So that was another thing that was identified, is that everybody needs to be on the same sheet of music. And those initial walkthroughs. Here's. Here's another problem.

[Mariana]

You.

[Brad Beeler]

When we go out to do an advance, we're trying to build it out for safety. The staff is trying to build it out for visibility. And if you're a staff member and you're trying to get an event and you're trying to get brought along to go to D.C. to be part of the permanent staff, you want a great event that has great sight lines, that looks good, that has that American flag. What would we want? We would want you to be doing this in a basement or let's just do it at the White House. Right. We can't do that. So sometimes that interplay and how things are built out are not to the specifications that they should be. And you obviously have a. At the time, I served my permanent detail with former President H.W. bush. So I say this as somebody where my permanent detail was a former detail, was not presidential protection, was not vice president protection. There are hindrances, and there's benefits of being on those details. But at the time, Trump was getting a level of protection no former president had ever gotten. You know, four counter sniper teams. I mean, that's just crazy. I mean, in a good way, we thought. But sometimes you think, you know, you have these specialized teams, they're like Jedis. Right. It is very, very hard to watch that many people. And when you have 15, however many thousand it was at the event, it's a hot day, you have people falling out due to heat emergency. So maybe response teams that normally would have been out looking for things, they see somebody that's 80 years old fall out in front of them, what are they going to naturally do? They're going to render aid, but they're not going to be doing maybe what on their posts. Right, right. So once again, it was just a bunch of things that in this threat environment moving forward, I think we're obviously going to want a ballroom where we can host events at the White House. I think we're going to want inside events as much as possible and we're going to want an agency that's much bigger that. And you know, some of it's also, look, you are in a country that has a lot of weapons. You're in a country that has privileges that makes America great. We can have protesters right here next to a motorcade. If we're in certain countries, a lot of countries that you've been to, that

[Mariana]

is not, not allowed.

[Brad Beeler]

And if you don't listen, and if you don't listen to law enforcement, you don't have recourse.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

So the things that make America great are also make America make it very, very difficult for the Secret service to do its job Right.

[Mariana]

And the abundance of guns and weapons out there also makes it dangerous. Would tell me about your detailing service. Like you worked with H.W.

[Brad Beeler]

bush.

[Mariana]

That was your permanent. He was a former president.

[Brad Beeler]

He was former.

[Mariana]

What was he like and what was.

[Brad Beeler]

Amazing, amazing family. I mean, you take a guy that got a waiver at 17 to join the Navy to be a naval aviator, leaves Yale. I mean, he has a picture in his office with Babe Ruth coming because he was a great baseball player and Babe Ruth signs a bat for him. And so just an amazing human being gets shot down over chichi Jima in 1945. And one of the great stories of history that people just have never told, he cries when he tells it. I mean, when he was alive, in his book, his memoirs, he's. He gets shot down, he gets hit by anti aircraft fire. And if you landed on Chichajima, you were going to be executed. So he's holding on, he's trying to get his navigator and his rear gunner to jettison to, to parachute. He waits to the last minute, no ejection seats, you're climbing out on the ring wing and just jumping. He lands a few hundred meters off the coach of Chichi Jima. Incoming tide. You know you're probably going to be done for. The USS Fin back in the world's greatest biggest ocean, hears a splash, puts up its periscope and sees H.W. bush, this 18 year old guy bobbing in the water surfaces and at his library you see it pulling him on board the footage. Think about how history would have changed but CIA director, RNC chair, House of Representatives, first emissary to China, vice president, president, and somebody that when you heard him talk, you just get such respect because I don't want to say he was the last true politician, but he worked on both sides of the aisle. He was told by his advisors when the wall came down, you know, leading into the 92 election, you know, 91, hey, you need to go over there and do a Reagan bring, you know, bring down this wall. We brought down this wall. He told his advisors, I can't do that because that puts Gorbachev in a horrible situation. Who does that? Yeah, if you could get five points in the polls, everybody does that nowadays. The whole no new taxes thing, he went back on that because he thought he got a better deal for the American people. But look at how that obviously affected the election. Worked with tons of tsunami release stuff after with with Clinton. Just was, was great with public service. Barbara was great. I always like to tell the story. We're leaving the detail and my son, who's 21 now, but he was 3 or 4 at the time, he was playing with Doro, the daughter's dog, and then he was playing with Barbara's dog. And Barbara had gone in the house to let my wife try on the pearls. And my son was getting advice from H.W. he was 87 at the time, I believe. Still jumping out of airplanes.

[Mariana]

Yeah, because he was jumping out of airplane until late and yeah, he was incredible. You've actually said, I heard you say this, or at least you've been quoted as saying this, that it was protecting him was more like chasing tests than it was guarding dust. And he was like my career. I actually had to for what Guardian test meant because I never watched that movie. But it's a movie with Nicholas cage and Shirley McQueen where he's secret Service and he's trying to protect. She's a former first lady, right. And she's like not taking any of his order or like not, you know, she's her own. Difficult to protect. She's her own woman.

[Brad Beeler]

That was Barbara in a nutshell.

[Mariana]

That's so funny.

[Brad Beeler]

She. And. And the reason I say that is because she walks out and my son is petting there. I think it's a cockapoo. And HW is giving my son probably some worldly advice and gave him a little autographed. I think it was a dauntless dive bomber that was his. So autographed this plane and gave it to him. So my son, what an amazing thing. But from behind, Doro's dog, I think it was a boxer, came behind and was humping him from behind. So my son's on all fours. Barbara comes out and she just got the first iPhone. She takes a picture of it. I don't know what's going on. I'm off the detail. I'm traveling to my next duty location and I get an email to my Secret Service email and it just says barber on it and it says for future blackmail purposes. And it's a picture of my son looking at the camera while the dog is helping him behind that. She had that foresight. Foresight that, you know, now my son will know. But I've got it for his wedding photo, you know, to show at the reception how far he's come in life.

[Mariana]

That's so awesome.

[Brad Beeler]

But they were great. They.

[Mariana]

They were kind people.

[Brad Beeler]

They never traveled on Christmas because. Because they didn't want the agents to be away from their families. I mean, obviously summer in Maine is pretty great. Living in Houston is great during the winter. Great cost of living. You know, they were great. I got to go to EMT school, boat school, rescue swimmer school, because they were always on the water. So it was an idyllic situation. So I always am very careful about weighing in for protection because my protection experience was amazing. Yeah. I'm not going on CNN talking about high level things with protection because. Because I wasn't on Air Force One. I wasn't on Marine One. I was doing protection. Now. Yes. When Israel come in, did I get to go to Camp David with Israel? Did I get to work with. When Amita Judd came into the United States, was I on their detail? You know, when I was in Japan, one of the great experiences I had on this job was how I have some hope in humanity was I was in Tokyo and I'm working with a Japanese Secret service agent. And for three days, once again, not recruiting brochure Stuff because I'm in a stairwell. Very not fun stuff. It's not climate control. It's, you know, we're not having a great time, but I'm using Google Translate to have this amazing conversation with this Japanese secret service agent. And he's from Nagasaki, 70 years ago. We're dropping a B29, is dropping an atomic device on his town, and here we are having this amazing conversation. He's bringing in pastries every day that his wife had made. I give him a little US Flag lapel pen and he pops open his French cuffs and gives me the pearl cufflinks that his grandfather gave him that I'm just going to give to my son when he graduates college in December. So that's my hope in humanity that people are people, whatever. And I'm sure you've seen this, people are people. Right. Is that protectees put their shoes on and take their shoes off just like everybody else. They're worried about anniversaries and birthday birthdays just like everybody else. They just have things that are so magnified and it's under such a. Such an eye.

[Mariana]

Yeah. You know, I felt the same way in Vietnam. Just traveling through Vietnam and the openness of the people and the way they treat Americans.

[Brad Beeler]

One generation so much.

[Mariana]

Yes. One generation so much respect. And then you also worked with George W. Bush, the son. And how was that?

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah. So that was during the election controversy. The hanging chad. We would go out for three weeks, and then you would go back to your field office and stand post. Then you go back on. On. And it was. That was the recruiting brochure. Okay. That was jumping off the plane, you know, being in the back of the. The Suburban.

[Mariana]

What was he like?

[Brad Beeler]

Great. I mean, he was a runner. He. He would talk to some of the people when he was running. He would try to beat everybody at biking and running.

[Mariana]

It's funny.

[Brad Beeler]

He's competitive, very competitive, just like his dad. His dad was, too, with tennis and other things as well, and golf. But, you know, they were big in golf. You know, it's H.W. bush. Well, Walker, that's named after the Walker cup, which is one of the famous golf events between nations, is that. That was always a big part of the Bush family. And it was always great to see all the PGA golfers come up there every summer and play on the local golf course. Phil Mickelson shooting the 59 on the local Kenny Bunk golf course. But, yeah, it was.

[Mariana]

It was all precedents. Play golf. Wasn't Obama. I mean, Trump definitely doesn't Obama Also play golf at some point or start playing. It's like a thing you need to do if you ever want.

[Brad Beeler]

For diplomacy in business.

[Mariana]

Yeah. Maybe that's why women never made it, because there's not as many women playing golf out there. What about. What about Clinton? You also worked with him, right?

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, but standing post. So, you know, the thing is, you. When you hear Secret Service people talk and they say, oh, I protected seven presidents, Okay, I may have stood post. I may have done an advance. If they're a former president, I may have been on a shift, whatever the case may be. But as far as I stood post or did advances for Clinton, the thing I will remember about him is if I was driving the limo. I remember in St. Louis, he came in and driving the limo, and he's playing Sudoku. He's on a phone call, he's talking to his advisors, and he's making a comment about something he sees outside, and he's doing all of them well. So the cognitive ability. I've never had a. A bad experience with any of our protective. Because I get that question a lot. Like, I heard this and I heard that, I think so many times. Protect these. They've been with agents for so long that they treat us with respect is because they know what might have to happen, you know? You know, for all the things that went wrong at Butler, those men and women that jumped on the pile did it without any hesitation at all.

[Mariana]

And that's something you train for, right?

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah.

[Mariana]

You have to be ready to do.

[Brad Beeler]

Here's the thing. You train for it. And I can't imagine, because there's no amount of stimulus. I don't know how I would have reacted that day. I know how those six or seven agents reacted, though. And it was instantaneous. And people can say, well, they should have carried him off. They should have done this. They should, man. I think they acted absolutely flawlessly. You know, the counter sniper, you know, once again, for as many faults, you know, took care of the issue. The uniform Division technician. So the response after the mistake was good. But if we have to respond, we've already failed.

[Mariana]

Right. Oh, wait. In 2015, could not let this go. You were named the U.S. secret Service Special Agent of the Year, and it was because of a particularly hard case involving a child death in your hometown.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah, you know, we had congrats, first of all. Yeah, thank you. It was, you know, you go your whole career looking for accolades, I guess, and it was one of those things that was kind of hollow because it was built upon A couple child deaths, another homicide, and then a lot of child sexual assault cases. So it was built upon bad things. Right. And some of it was I just had a great relationship with the local police department. I can't say that I did anything that another agent couldn't have done. Right. I mean, your ego says, this isn't this. But I remember, you know, they fly to dc, my son's there and my wife's there. And you feel good, like it's old.

[Mariana]

Is your son.

[Brad Beeler]

At the time he was so he's 21 now, but at the time he was so whatever the math is on that. So, yeah, 10 or 11. So he's got his little suit on.

[Mariana]

That's cute.

[Brad Beeler]

You know, the director comes out and they read this just like you did this great write up and you feel good. But then it was on the 150th anniversary of the Secret Service founding and the weather was horrible outside. And I just remember thinking, as I'm getting this nice award board and they have a little, you know, tasting menu after this, that there are people out in the cold, in the rain, standing post, that could care less about this person working this investigative, because we work investigations, but it's protection that matters. And a lot of people didn't get the opportunities that I did. So. And right after that is when I had my health scare because of too much work. So I realized I was missing stuff at home. I was working for an accolade. And so, yeah, I was proud of it, but I think it was built upon things that I probably. I was probably working too hard in the wrong arena.

[Mariana]

Right. But it must have been good. It was really good. And it was particularly to have your family there. Were your parents there as well?

[Brad Beeler]

My parents didn't come up because they. The Secret Service didn't pay for my parents to come up, but they did pay for the whole family, my immediate family, to come up. So it was.

[Mariana]

Yeah, like, that's great. You know, it's the same thing with journalism. Right. Because you're getting. You're getting all these accolades and it's usually for work that you've done. It's a little bit like I often say this how for us, how you sort of. For you, it's a walk in somebody else's nightmare. Right?

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah.

[Mariana]

As a journalist.

[Brad Beeler]

Good way to put it.

[Mariana]

Yeah.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah. It's actually completely correct. Parallel is that, and I don't know if you sense this, but I didn't say that I sensed animosity from other people. And I don't definitely want to call it jealousy because I truly believe sometimes it's just what get placed on your desk or what situation you get put in. But did you feel like other people looked at you and said, oh, it must be nice to have those opportunities?

[Mariana]

Yes. I mean, but I rightfully so.

[Brad Beeler]

Yeah.

[Mariana]

In many ways. Right. Because I do think that we won the lottery. Yeah. By being born in the countries that we were born and given the opportunities that we were. And that's why I try so hard not to judge and really try to understand how did this person get. Get here? But of course I want to make this. This doesn't mean we are condoning the act. It doesn't mean that we don't know. We're fully aware that there is pure evil in the world.

[Brad Beeler]

And those understanding is not agreement.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Brad Beeler]

And that's what some people don't understand.

[Mariana]

You're so right. This has been an incredible interview and podcast hour. Two hours actually. Thank you so much.

[Brad Beeler]

Thank you. Toughest questions I've ever been asked. I can tell you. You earned those awards. Right?

[Mariana]

Right. Wait and tell me what you're trying to tell me the name of your book again.

[Brad Beeler]

Tell me everything.

[Mariana]

Tell me everything and tell me what you would like. What do you think? Who should be reading this book?

[Brad Beeler]

Which is of course I'm going to say everybody. Right. But I did start out writing it for law enforcement because I learned so many lessons about communication that I wanted that homicide to go well. I wanted that child sexual assault to. I wanted somebody that was innocent to be cleared. But then my editor, Matt Holt, did an amazing job of being like, man, this is a communication book. This is. This is what, you know, a kid at 2 in the morning, you're going to create a relationship. So he's not afraid to call his mom or dad and said, I've been drinking. And he doesn't get in the car or you're going in to talk to a supervisor or whatever. So yeah, I think it started off with how do we set the stage for an interview? How do we get that first impression? How do we use our senses to further a good conversation? How do we detect deception? And then after we detect deception, how do we still maintain that relationship? By calling people out.

[Mariana]

Yeah. So right at the beginning of your book, I actually wrote this down because I love this. It's when people feel they can tell you anything, they will tell you everything.

[Brad Beeler]

Absolutely.

[Mariana]

It's such a great line. I'm going to keep that one with us. Brad, beer. Thank you so much. For being on the podcast. I had such a fun time.

[Brad Beeler]

Thanks for having me, Sam.