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- [00:02]
A
Ready to soundtrack your summer with Red Bull Summer All Day Play. You choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end dj, a road dog, or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All Day Play. Red Bull gives you wings. Visit Red Bull.com BrightSummerAhead to learn more. See you this summer.
- [00:28]
B
Welcome back to the Tier One podcast. I'm your host, Brent Tucker, owner of FRCC. That's First Responder Coffee, Cigar and Cast Company. Go to FRCC shop and use promo code TIER1 to get 15 off the world's best coffee, cigars and bourbon.
- [00:48]
A
And I'm Drew Tucker. I'm in charge of the thermostat at FRCC Shop. Guys, I invite you to join our Patreon there. You'll get behind the scenes content, exclusive content. There's a fitness forum. It's all brought to you by Cobalt Kinetics and there's a gun forum. And in that gun forum is a Cobalt Kinetics weapons expert ready to answer all your weapons questions. So join our Patreon today. It costs less than your wife, Starbucks.
- [01:18]
B
And as always, this episode is brought to you by Human Performance TRT. Go to hp-trt.com and use promo code TIER1 to get 20% off all your testosterone and peptide needs. Don't wait any longer to get in the best shape of your life. Let's do it, Drew.
- [01:48]
A
For the Special Forces rescue.
- [01:52]
B
Welcome to the Tier one podcast.
- [02:09]
A
This is amazing.
- [02:10]
B
Dude, check this out. And with us today we have Chris Piota, US Air Force veteran, former NASA scientist, also served in the FBI for 25 years, retiring at the highest levels of the FBI and wrote the book wanted the FBI I once knew. Welcome to the show, Chris.
- [02:38]
A
Thank you very much, Brent. It's pleasure to be with you and your audience.
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B
I'm looking forward to it. In fact, I served with your son who's still serving, so I won't say his full name out of respect, but it's probably connect those dots for people who know not only did I, I worked did combat tours with them as a green bray and worked with them, we'll just say in other aspects of my career as well. And someone else introduced us and we found out through talking that I served with your son.
- [03:09]
A
Yeah, just casual conversation. But yeah, you know, the, the Godfather of, of YouTube introduced us and we had no idea that we had that comic.
- [03:16]
B
Right? Yeah, it was Jameson Travels. Jameson Travels introduces that, that, that guy much about YouTube and, and I love it. I've have, I've had to use him as a lifeline several times.
- [03:26]
A
He's been a mentor and a teacher for me and taught me how things work. That would have taken me years to figure out if ever about YouTube.
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B
And you know, I'm, I'm gonna brag about Jameson for a second because I don't think people. People know and I won't. You know, maybe he just, I, I assume that he, he prefers to just kind of do it without the accolades and the shadows or else he would have told you. But the amount I'll leave for him to tell but the amount of people that, that call him that are, that are big in this business and, and that they are his go to just absolutely surprised me. Almost everyone I talk to knows him and, and says the same things like yeah, I call that guy and he's more, more than willing to take all these phone calls and talk to you for as long as you want to talk about anything he can help you with. He has a massive channel. He has. And he doesn't do it for a fee. He, he just does it because he's a nice guy.
- [04:26]
A
Well, he has. He's a million subs.
- [04:28]
B
Yeah.
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A
And on his Jameson Travels channel. And like you said, he, that's why I call him the Godfather. I mean he, he seems to be involved with helping a lot of folks and mentoring a lot of people and just providing that knowledge and support.
- [04:41]
B
Right.
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A
And yeah, he's just a super, super guy. I know he comes off as being an old crotchety Marine, but he's, but he's actually, he's a super nice guy. He.
- [04:49]
B
Super great guy right off the bat. Tasty games. Want to make sure that I gave you.
- [04:54]
A
Thank you. Appreciate it.
- [04:57]
B
Get your, get your creatine the easy way and you can travel with it.
- [05:01]
A
Need all the help I can get at this point.
- [05:03]
B
What I love about is, you know, creatine's been proven not just in the recovery and physical aspect, on the mental aspect is as well. And that's really motivated me to be up to date and current with my, my creatine. And this is courtesy of Cloud Defensive.
- [05:16]
A
Thank you, sir. Appreciate that.
- [05:18]
B
Attack light for you. Well, can't defend you or your family if you, if you can't. If you can't see.
- [05:23]
A
You like to see threats coming at you.
- [05:25]
B
That's right.
- [05:26]
A
Threats resolved.
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B
Right.
- [05:28]
A
Thank you.
- [05:28]
B
And finding and seeing threats is going to be a, a common thread in, in this podcast. And I'm, I'M looking forward to it. So you were retired as an, as an ses Senior Executive.
- [05:44]
A
Senior Executive Services Service.
- [05:46]
B
Senior Executive Services, which, and for anyone watching as, as we view it in the military, whenever we would have or interact with an ses, we, we view that as equivalent of a, of a general or an admiral. And at the level you retired at is really the equivalent of a four star.
- [06:07]
A
That's what we were told. Yeah, we were four star equivalents.
- [06:09]
B
Yeah. Just, just to give the audience an idea of, of the levels of that you retired at. At, at the FBI. But I actually want to start at the beginning. Because you started with the US Air Force.
- [06:24]
A
I did. Went into the Air force at age 18, decided I wasn't going to do college. That wasn't there for me. I had no interest in it. And I substituted military service and was able to go in, get a highly technical rating. Worked in the field of metrology. It's your measurement science, it's your quantification, calibration, make sure things work like they're supposed to. Did that for six years and served mostly stateside because there wasn't anything going on at the time. And as you and I talked about jokingly, I tell people I didn't join, I didn't serve in the real military, I did Air Force as an alternative. Right.
- [07:05]
B
You know when, when you sit in your bio, when you see metrology and you're a metrologist, Right. If you read it fast, it looks like meteorology or meteorologist.
- [07:15]
A
Yeah, meteorology is like I said, meteorology is cool.
- [07:19]
B
Right.
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A
And you know, you can predict the weather and study weather patterns. Metrology is not cool. And I tell people all the time it's a very kind of science geek type of an endeavor. But it's necessary to make sure everything in society works like it's supposed to, that it acts like it's supposed to, and it's accurate and precise. And my areas of expertise, before I left that field, I used to do platinum resistance thermometry where we would measure very precise temperature. I used to do microwave power and optical power measurements and I did helium leak rate analysis, which there were only three machines like it in the world at the time. One we had, one the Navy had, and one was operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which built all three of them. So we used to test the space shuttle fuel systems with, with these type of machines and artifacts to make sure that it was operating properly. And I did a whole bunch of electronic and physical measurement work. So I'll stop There and not just punish everybody with the talk on metrology.
- [08:27]
B
I, I love that because you spent a long time around the military and in a joint unit, met a lot of, you know, support guys as well, and understanding what, what the different resources we have. I, I did not know that was even a job in our military. How do you know how, how you got assigned to that job?
- [08:50]
A
Well, it's kind of a, it's one of those recruiter stories, right?
- [08:53]
B
Okay.
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A
I go in, I take the tests, I do all the things and I'm going to, you know, I'm going to be an unlisted guy. And I said, hey, I'm looking at these jobs. And the recruiter, I actually had a good recruiter, he says, no, man. He goes, you don't want any of that garbage. He goes, this is what you want right here. Because my scores were good enough for it.
- [09:10]
B
Okay.
- [09:10]
A
And he said, you want to get into this? And I'm looking at it. And he goes, and this is what it is. And I said, all right, sounds good. And he did me a solid like no one else's business. Because once I got into the school, I saw what it was. And it's an engineering science school that at the time, believe it or not, the Air Force was the only place you could get formal training in this inter service school at Lowry Air Force Base, which is now closed.
- [09:38]
B
Do you remember how long the initial training for that was? It seems intense. It's a lot of.
- [09:44]
A
It could rain, it could go up to a year just in the technical side of it. And that's just to get through the very basic part of it.
- [09:50]
B
Yep.
- [09:51]
A
And then you had to go through other schools and other things like that after the fact, once you hit a specialization.
- [09:56]
B
Right. Yeah. So with, with that background, it doesn't seem like that big of a leap to go over to NASA. How'd that come about?
- [10:08]
A
Well, I got to my end of service commitment and I decided I wasn't going to stay in. So I started sending out applications and resumes. And the field of metrology, very sought after in certain highly scientific areas. Like you can work at the national laboratories at Sandia or Oak Ridge. But I applied to NASA and got into the space shuttle program. They needed that skill set to make sure again, everything works like it's supposed to. Because when we talked about it, every time a shuttle takes off, it's like an immaculate conception happens and they need to make sure that everything is exactly like it should be. And that's the science of metrology, essentially.
- [10:48]
B
Just to kind of make sure that I understand it. Right. Is it that the scientists, you know, come up with these, whether it be theories or plans, and then it's your job to ensure that those are viable or are you working with them during the planning process to ensure that the plan they present is viable?
- [11:09]
A
It's a little of both, depending on what's going on. Right. Because they want to make sure that whatever they put out is workable in the physical world. You can write all the stuff you want on whiteboards and blackboards and you can have all the great. The good idea fairy shows up. We were the ones who made sure it actually functioned, worked and did like it was designed to do by the engineering standards in place.
- [11:31]
B
Right, right. The.
- [11:34]
A
As I said, it's a borefest, but it was a necessary function.
- [11:42]
B
Yeah, I could, I could see how you could consider it a borefest, but I'm pretty sure the, the astronauts were pretty grateful for, for your input in every mission.
- [11:53]
A
They were grateful when it took off and they were grateful when it came back, for sure. And, but, but even in regular life, I mean, you have metrology everywhere you look, making sure that even the sound levels on this recording are accurate, that the temperature thermometer in your house is accurate. Of course those are lower level accuracies, but.
- [12:11]
B
Right.
- [12:12]
A
But everything in, everything in the world around us has to be measured and quantified.
- [12:17]
B
What years were you at NASA?
- [12:19]
A
90 through 95.
- [12:22]
B
That would, you can. It seems like those years were, were kind of the, the tail end of, of the space program. Would that be, would that be accurate?
- [12:31]
A
Yeah, it had reached the mountaintop and it was on the downward slide. Space shuttle had a few more years left of programmatic life. And at that point I knew I didn't want to do that anymore and I didn't want to be working in the metrology field for the next several decades. I had had enough of it. And, and again, I didn't, I didn't have the credentialing to go and work at Sandia or Oak Ridge. That's like, that's like, you know, NFL versus, you know, kind of junior, you know, intramural sports at junior college.
- [13:05]
B
What, what was your perception of, of NASA once? I'm sure you had one going into it. But, but how did it meet, exceed or what. What were the results of you actually getting to work in the space program?
- [13:23]
A
As always, it's a government agency, I'll preface it with that. But they did remarkable things. I mean, they had people there that were exceptionally intelligent Enterprising. I mean these people, they created miracles. But also there was that government part of it where some days I would just shake my head. And that's why I said every time this thing takes off, it's like the Immaculate Conception where I don't know how we get this done with the amount of government red tape, bureaucracy, just nonsensical government stuff. So you know, NASA again, remarkable bunch of folks there that do just. Except they create miracles.
- [14:00]
B
Yeah, I don't want, we'll go too far off on it, but it just, just, it's just the, the contradiction of, of that which is, which we talked about earlier at. I did some contracts for SpaceX and getting to work in the government at a high level. You know, I had very high expectations of what the government is capable of. But then again I've also worked at, on all aspects of the government to some degree and I'm very aware of what the government can, usually does. And so I was very interested to see how SpaceX worked and functioned as essentially it's, it's weird. It's a hybrid, right? It is privatized, but it's very much government funded. But it has the culture of, of a privatized space program. And I couldn't have been any more impressed with them. Just couldn't have been any more impressed with SpaceX. Those guys loved their job. They loved working there. They worked, they want, they, they knew they had to work at a high level because if there were any failures they knew they could be replaced, they'd be fired.
- [15:13]
A
Well, the consequences of, consequences of failure.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Just incredible.
- [15:17]
B
And I was, I'm not a whole lot of organizations impressing me, but that, that one really did and we joked about that. No one in a government agency really ever has the, the concern of being fired.
- [15:33]
A
It's not high on their list of daily things to think about.
- [15:37]
B
Yeah, I mean once you get pretty high into an organization, you know, if, if, if you get egg on your face now it's, now it's a little bit more political than, than it is anything else.
- [15:46]
A
Right.
- [15:47]
B
But for the most part that the ground workers, they don't worry about getting fired.
- [15:50]
A
No, no, they're protected. There's a lot of government protection for those folks. And as you said, like when you get up, even, even when you're in the military and as you're, you're a general officer and something fails under your command, you're fired.
- [16:00]
B
Yeah.
- [16:01]
A
Right. So you can be relieved of duty.
- [16:03]
B
So you can be. Of course, unless it's Unless it's the evacuation, Afghanistan and then apparently no one can get fired. But that's, but that's a topic for another. Just thought I'd slide that in there.
- [16:13]
A
Well, yeah, no, no, it's a great example of how the government can do something really badly and then there's no consequences. Yeah, it's crazy bad.
- [16:24]
B
So when here at the Tier 1 podcast, we're excited to have Tasty gains as a sponsor. A company with values that aligns with ours. I take their products every day, three times a day. And if it wasn't a product that I didn't take personally and believe in and a company with integrity, then they wouldn't be sponsors on this show. Creatine helps the body produce more ATP, which is an energy molecule that your entire body runs on. It helps improve your physical and mental performance in all aspects of life. Let's be honest, creatine powder sucks to take every day. With the creatine gummies you can take them with you anywhere and they taste great. Every batch is third party tested so you know you're getting exactly what you pay for. Go to tastygains.com and enter the promo code tier one. That's T I E R the number one. And get 20% off your order when you, when you left. Now when you left NASA, did you, did you know the FBI was going to be your next step?
- [17:27]
A
No. What happened was I talked to my wife one day and I said, I can't do this anymore. Right. I sat in this RF shielded room all day with my equipment and I couldn't even listen to the radio because it was block all the radio waves. So I said, all right, I've had enough of this. And the shuttle program was winding down and we had, you know, we had two small children. So I said I got to look at something else. So I said I want to go back in the military. And I told you I was in the Florida National Guard, I was going to ocs. I thought maybe I'll go that way. Yeah, military's, you know, I enjoyed my time, but I also was interested in law enforcement. I wanted to go back to more of a service type of mission environment, so to speak. And I applied to a bunch of different agencies, FBI being one of them. I went and took all their tests and did everything. And I didn't know this, but they were on a three year hiring freeze and they were just coming out of it.
- [18:16]
B
The 90s was tough for the government when it comes to spending and hiring.
- [18:20]
A
Yeah. So they were just Coming out of that hiring freeze, they must have gotten low enough on people, it started hurting, Right. So they decided to send a few new agent classes through the FBI academy. But I got a call on a Monday. So take the call. Lady says, hey, are you still interested in the FBI? I said, well, sure, absolutely. She goes, good, we have a new agent class starting up. Can you be here this Sunday? I said, absolutely. And so I had to kind of realign my whole life that week. Well, and then I had to call my wife and tell her what I just agreed to. Right. It was one of those things. Like I said, hey, guess what? And of course, my wife just couldn't be a better soldier, better partner or everything. She says, all right, let's do it.
- [19:09]
B
Love it.
- [19:10]
A
And you know, how to explain my kids, hey, I got to go away for a while, you know, type of thing. And, yeah, I had to withdraw from the National Guard, withdraw from ocs, resigned from my position and drive to Quantico that weekend. And then I got my formal acceptance letter from the FBI three weeks later. So I was up there kind of on a wing and a prayer. Right.
- [19:31]
B
Again, you just want to talk about government inefficiencies, they'll ask you, hey, can you move your whole life around and be here in short notice? But we'll take our sweet time getting you your offer letter.
- [19:44]
A
That's how the uncle. That's how Uncle Sam does business.
- [19:48]
B
It unfortunately is. What year is this that you get into the FBI?
- [19:53]
A
I entered the FBI on duty in 1995, went to Quantico, did the. I think at the time it was 16 weeks training in residence at Quantico, got my credentials handed to me by then director Louis Free, and went to the Newark, New Jersey field office for my first posting. Back then, my wife would send me newspaper clippings on things because the Internet wasn't quite a thing yet. Right. Back in 95, we were still doing dial up modems and all that good stuff. And when I told her we were going to Newark, she cried. And then she started sending me clippings about. It was the. At the time, it was the number one place for carjackings, highest number of AIDS cases in the country, and a whole bunch of other accolades of ill repute.
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B
So that's.
- [20:48]
A
That's where I went for my first field office. And I learned very quickly, everything lousy in the world starts in New Jersey or it passes through New Jersey or it ends up in New Jersey.
- [20:59]
B
Yeah, yeah. Your poor wife. That's not the way life is. Supposed to go, you're supposed to go from New Jersey to Florida. Not Florida, Florida to New Jersey.
- [21:08]
A
Right.
- [21:09]
B
We're going backwards here.
- [21:10]
A
Yeah, I think, I think I took her on a little detour that she wasn't really. But again, as I said, I couldn't ask for, you know, better, better partner in this type of thing. And she wanted me to get back to a career that I, I was, I was happy with. And she's, and she's an educator by profession, so she could move. She had a portable career.
- [21:28]
B
Okay.
- [21:28]
A
So it was a. She was able to move.
- [21:30]
B
I asked this only because I've interviewed enough law enforcement, especially career law enforcement. And it seemed like the 90s was the beginning of the end of just good old fashioned police work. Like you could, you could still, you could still be a cop in the 90s.
- [21:52]
A
Yeah.
- [21:53]
B
How did you, how did that. But then again, that's, that's local law enforcement or regional law enforcement on the federal level. And FBI. How, how was law enforcement in the 90s?
- [22:05]
A
When I, when I entered the organization, we were still the, I wouldn't say the old FBI, you know, at the dragnet FBI. We weren't, we weren't that FBI, but we were still the old fashioned FBI where it was still run by the G Men.
- [22:21]
B
Right, right.
- [22:22]
A
We were still cops and robbers FBI. Yeah, we were still Silence of the Lambs FBI. That was the F. We still were. And when I came in, we were just starting to look at national security as a thing because of the 1993 World Trade center bombing. We were still coming out of that, scratching our heads, corporately saying, hey, what is this? And putting that national security, as I told you, the square national security peg into the round law enforcement hole. And we were just trying to smash it down in there. But we were still an organization that was built on old FBI principles. And people will say, well, that wasn't good enough. It's not that it wasn't good enough. What happened was, is the world changed and we weren't quick to change with it, which led us up through the mid to late 90s. The threat environment started changing. We were still focused on cops and robbers being more reactive than proactive.
- [23:21]
B
Right.
- [23:21]
A
And preventative.
- [23:23]
B
Right.
- [23:23]
A
We were still, we were still playing cops and robbers. And then of course, that led us up to September of 2000.
- [23:31]
B
So to kind of paraphrase that, it goes from traditional crime, where someone commits the crime, Right. Then you investigate it.
- [23:41]
A
Right.
- [23:41]
B
You know, then you have a conclusion. And with this, with the world changing with terrorism, Would. Once they commit the crime, it's too late. And they want to wonder. They want. They want to know where everyone was and why didn't you prevent it. So getting ahead of it. So not investigate it after it happened, but the investigation essentially happening before it happens to stop it from happening. That's the mindset.
- [24:05]
A
Absolutely. They didn't. What happened was, is we were still responding to a criminal activity. Someone would do something. They would elicit a response or attention from us. We would conduct investigation, apprehend said criminals, then they would be prosecuted, put, taken to jail. That was the model.
- [24:20]
B
Yeah.
- [24:21]
A
And what we found was when the tragedy of September 11th came, all the. All the criminals, so to speak, the perpetrators. I don't like that word. But they were all dead, so we really couldn't go right and put them in jail. And we found that we didn't see the operational horizon. We didn't see what was happening enough to where the adversary basically was better than we were in that threat environment. And as a result, people lost their loved ones, friends, and family members.
- [24:57]
B
Yeah, I've never really thought about it like that until we just had that conversation. And trying to change a whole organization to get ahead of something rather than be reactive has got to be just a monumental task. Shifting resources, creating jobs that either were never there, or there was a certain amount of jobs that were there, but just not nearly enough of them to be able to be effective. To technology advancements, just everything that has to happen when you change focus like that is just. It's just massive, and it's gonna take some time. When you're talking about terrorism, we don't have time.
- [25:39]
A
We didn't have any time.
- [25:40]
B
Right. We need it now.
- [25:41]
A
We had just had our tails kicked. People were screaming for resolution. Actually, they were screaming for revenge. The FBI. We were in a position where we didn't know what happened. We were rocked on our heels. We were just. We were operating in the blind for a little while. And what we found was, is we had one of the hijacking crews for Flight 93, United Flight 93, was operating in our area in New Jersey. We had no idea they were there. We thought we had that place zipped up tight, and we did for what we knew. Right? Right. They were there. But here's the interesting thing, Brent. They brought a new operating model. They knew how to avoid us. They knew how to avoid any communities that we were looking at so that no one in our informant base could point them out. They. They completely operated with impunity, and we had no idea.
- [26:44]
B
Yeah.
- [26:46]
A
Where.
- [26:46]
B
Where were you on 9 11?
- [26:49]
A
I was in the office. I was. I was there early that day and I was going. I was the second in charge on the squad at the time. My squad supervisor hadn't been in yet. I was going through the mail, you know, kind of looking to see what was going on for the day. And somebody comes running down the hall, and it was a clear, sunny, blue sky day, and somebody, one of our analysts, comes running down the hall and says, hey, an aircraft just hit the World Trade Center. And we said, what are you talking about? And we looked out the window and sure enough, you could see the smoke rising. And we thought, wow, that's a tragedy. We thought might have been a small aircraft, you know, some kind of an accident. And then we had the second tower strike.
- [27:29]
B
Right.
- [27:29]
A
And then, of course, the day went on from there. So, yeah, I mean, it was go time from the start.
- [27:37]
B
I mean, it's. It's almost rhetorical, but, like, what was the, what was the pressure like after. After 911 and to have that type of tragedy happened on, on US Soil and in your backyard as an organization, just to feel that amount of pressure that the country is looking at you either for questions how could this happen? Or they've. They've kind of probably both questions of how could this happen? Coupled immediately with, this is never going to happen again. Right.
- [28:16]
A
Both. Right. And also we had people screaming for accountability.
- [28:22]
B
Yeah.
- [28:23]
A
And a lot of folks don't know this, but at the time, there was a lot of talk on the, on Capitol Hill that they wanted to split the FBI into several different pieces because we failed so utterly in their eyes. They wanted to take the FBI's law enforcement mission.
- [28:38]
B
Okay.
- [28:39]
A
And move it, and then take the national security or domestic security mission and move it away and create two separate agencies. And Director Mueller, who had just come on. He had just come on the job a couple weeks before, and he was handed this situation. He worked long and hard to make sure that he could keep the organization together as one complete agency. And the reason I say that it was a good move, because every one of our international partners wants our model. They have their intelligence, and then they have their law enforcement. Well, you can imagine they don't work well together overseas. We have unified chains of command in the FBI and unified. More so I would say, more unified programmatic integration than our foreign partners. And they said, we want your model. Don't do it. And he was able to convince the leadership not to.
- [29:35]
B
That's interesting, because as soon as you said that my first thought was maybe we should have done that because once an organization gets so big, it becomes, you know, almost a beast that's so hard to. So large, hard to control. And so maybe we should have parsed it out for, for controllability. But with that side of the argument about it, you're absolutely right to have it under the same umbrella, because once it becomes separate organizations, it becomes much more difficult to sync, to talk, to coordinate having under same umbrella streamlines that. That isn't. And that'll be very important for the next two decades for it to be streamlined, because especially when it comes to terrorism, they move fast. And that's part of the problem. They can move faster than the government can move. So we have to be streamlined at every level.
- [30:29]
A
Brent, they operate in the seams. Yeah. Right. They don't have rules, they don't have our bureaucratic issues, and they don't have those pesky things that come from the Constitution. Right. You know, all those, the civil liberties and all that stuff that doesn't affect them where we have to work with those structures. So, you know, they, they operate in those seams and they operate in the gaps. And, and, and we have to be that much better, faster and more efficient to get ahead of them.
- [30:59]
B
Right. And just for, for the people in the comment section, I'll, I'll clear this up for the. When you say pesky things in the Constitution.
- [31:11]
A
Yeah. That'll be clipped out. Yeah. It's clearly sarcastically.
- [31:15]
B
Right. Clearly tongue in cheek. And, and obviously there. There are. It prohibits you from doing your job. It does, but, but for good reason.
- [31:27]
A
It prohibits. I wouldn't say it prohibits us. It gives us mission friction. It slows us down in some areas, which is why I say we have to be that much better, faster and more efficient to get ahead of the adversary. The rules under our Constitution and under our legal systems are there to protect the rights of our people. Because government, like any human endeavor, will eventually overstep its bounds. And this is one of the things I said to people all the time. The government will a lot of times start out with good intent.
- [32:06]
B
Right.
- [32:07]
A
But the government goes down this road. If some is good, more must be better, and too much is just. Right. So when you put things in place to say, hey, we need new technologies, we need new this and that to go out and monitor the adversary and be proactive and preventative of threats. Yeah. Those same technologies can work against American citizens as well.
- [32:30]
B
Right.
- [32:31]
A
So that's where we give ourselves those limitations and those, those ceilings that we have to work under. And the people say, well, why couldn't you do that faster? Well, we could have, right? But protection of rights has to be balanced with operational capability.
- [32:46]
B
You know, I think a great example of that is no one had a problem with the Patriot act when it first came out. Everyone was, everyone was gung ho about it and would let the government do whatever needs to be done to make sure this never happens again. And now there's people that are very weary of the Patriot act and they see what, what it really released to the government. And now it's, now it's, now it's done a 180 for how it's perceived.
- [33:13]
A
Well, I knew one of the guys who was one of the chief architects of me, he's a super guy who's an FBI lawyer was brought in. And the reason they had to do the Patriot act initially, the reason they did it was because we found that the adversaries were using technologies and tactics that we didn't have an answer for based on our current authorities at the time. Okay. So they wrote the Patriot act to say, we're going to give you these authorities to go out and engage the adversary in these technical environments, in other environments where they're doing business. And we can't see them, we can't hear them, we can't get ahold of them. Right. And then the Patriot act, as you said, started out and then the government did, like I said, they went to, oh, some is good, more must be better, and too much is just. Right. And they used those authorities and they expanded them into areas that they were never originally intended for.
- [34:12]
B
Right?
- [34:12]
A
Because some lawyer figured out a lawyer way to say, well, we can use it over here too. Right. And that's where now you see, people had this negative view of the Patriot act. And it's because of the way it was employed and the way it was, I guess, deployed in some areas. And people see it now as well. We're spying on Americans.
- [34:32]
B
Right.
- [34:33]
A
So that's the government's fault for letting it get out of hand. Right? Here's a, here's a great thing. You hear about FISA 702, okay. You hear about the 702 coverage comes up for debate every year. And it's the authority where the intelligence community of the United States, primarily to people at Fort Meade, they can look at communications that occur overseas on non US Persons in order to look for those threats. Proactive, preventative. Right. Okay, so what happened was everybody said, yeah, absolutely, These people aren't U.S. citizens and U.S. persons monitor them. Well, what happens when those people overseas now have communications with people in the United States and now we're doing collection on United States citizens or persons without a warrant incidental to collection on that person overseas? That's where everything's getting out of hand. And the FBI in its typical fashion did not control the information that it was getting. Well, so people were just kind of going through there and looking up stuff and doing whatever and finding, say if I called somebody I knew in wherever, Middle east, well, now they're listening to my communications without a warrant. They're monitoring my communication without a warrant. There was no control inside the organization.
- [36:00]
B
Right. It goes back to that theme. Started out with good intent, with a specific scope, but government just says more, more, more until it's a problem.
- [36:11]
A
You heard, you've heard the term mission creep.
- [36:13]
B
Mission creep, right? Yeah, absolutely.
- [36:15]
A
There you go. So, but that's, that's kind of how that happens. And I watched it through the time of 9 after 9 11. And here's another thing too. People were in the United States. They were operating in an environment of fear. They were afraid. So they were willing to let the government do pretty much anything to protect them.
- [36:31]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [36:32]
A
So it was a little bit different environment. People aren't scared now so much. So that's why a lot of the sentiment has changed.
- [36:39]
B
As you noted earlier, they're not, but people are still people. And I do believe it is a good comparison. The same thing happened during COVID to where the people let the government do whatever it wanted to do in exchange for protection and securities.
- [37:00]
A
Some fear. Right. They were afraid of sickness, they were given an environment of fear. And then the government again, I think at the very beginning of that health crisis I'll call it, there were good intentions and then it went the way the things usually. It became a control thing, it became an overextension of authorities, it became all of that type of stuff. And that's why now people don't have trust in some of our most basic and valued institutions.
- [37:30]
B
If you've ever been to any of my tactical training classes, then you know how adamant I am about the use of white light and the importance of a quality high powered tactical light. That's why I use cloud defensive tac lights. You can't hit what you can't see and neither can the bad guys. Clearly identify your target and simultaneously overwhelm his vision with hundreds and even thousands of lumens. Get serious about defending yourself and your family. Go to cloud defensive dotcom and use promo code tier one to get 30% off your order. That's right, 30%. You won't find a better light than this, and you won't find a better deal than this. But going back to 9 11, okay, when, when we were all united maybe for the last time, right. If at least for a certain amount of time, the country got united again after the, the death of Osama bin Laden, that lasted for about 48 hours.
- [38:31]
A
Yeah, that was a quick one.
- [38:32]
B
That was a quick one. But hey, glad to see it. It can happen. But at least we had that momentum for years, it seemed. On 9 11, what was your job at the time?
- [38:42]
A
I was a case agent. I was a line special agent investigator in the Newark office working in the counterterrorism program. And we were there to look at, basically at the time, we weren't looking at it as a physical threat environment. We were there to interdict their logistical support networks, monitor any activities inside the US because, you know, they can, they can be here because our First Amendment allows them to be here. And they can say certain things under the First Amendment that we may not like, but they're entitled to say it. But we look for any material support to terrorism. We looked at any kind of. Were they fundraising, what were they doing here that may have led to terrorist activities overseas? That was, that was the primary part of the mission. And then of course, that changed after 9 11.
- [39:34]
B
Right. What, what were the weeks or months like at, at the office after 9 11?
- [39:43]
A
Fear, confusion, just lack of comprehension of what happened. Yeah, they, they wouldn't let me. It was interesting. They wouldn't let people go to the site, the World Trade center area, really. They blocked it all off. We went over at night one time, and it was kind of surreal, right, that, that was, you know, midtown Manhattan. And, but people, people were just scared and confused mostly. And, and a lot of folks were standing around saying, what do you want us to do? Yeah, you know, as FBI agents.
- [40:18]
B
Yeah.
- [40:18]
A
And there was a lot of confusion coming from headquarters. They were scratching their heads too, saying, wait a minute. And, you know, here's the thing. When you say, go out and interview some people, but make sure, be tough but firm. Be firm but, but be, be conscientious.
- [40:32]
B
Okay.
- [40:33]
A
Right. They were giving conflicting, you know.
- [40:35]
B
Yeah.
- [40:36]
A
And it was, it was a time of, like I said, fear and confusion, I would say.
- [40:39]
B
I'd imagine there was a lot of push from up top downloaded like, hey, do something right. Do something right.
- [40:50]
A
It was like, hey, let's. But, but, yeah, let's figure this out and figure what out?
- [40:54]
B
Right.
- [40:55]
A
And right.
- [40:55]
B
And seems possibly some busy work, you know, or just like exactly. What, what do you want me to do? Just do something?
- [41:04]
A
Well, of course, you know, Washington D.C. was looking for answers. So they were saying, what are you guys doing up there? And our largest field office, the New York City field office.
- [41:14]
B
Right.
- [41:14]
A
It's our largest field office, was taken offline because they were right in that there at 26 Federal Plaza, which was right in that kind of, I would say, damaged zone of the towers falling. So they were offline.
- [41:26]
B
Right.
- [41:27]
A
And they were operating blind out of a parking garage.
- [41:30]
B
Really?
- [41:30]
A
Yeah.
- [41:31]
B
Not imagine you guys worked with them fairly often. Right. Right next door to you at least had. Had.
- [41:36]
A
We were kind of like that redheaded stepchild, little brother.
- [41:39]
B
Okay.
- [41:39]
A
Of theirs, you know, but they, they were the 600 pound gorilla.
- [41:43]
B
Okay.
- [41:44]
A
And they were taken offline and then it fell to us across the river and we were woefully unprepared for the. And here's the thing is, you know, you've heard that, that old saying, plans never survive contact with the enemy, Right? Well, that's what happened.
- [42:01]
B
Yeah.
- [42:01]
A
All the plans and all the great ideas. As soon as it happened, we were immediately, immediately overextended, overwhelmed. Comms were down. People don't realize you couldn't, you could make a phone call. Where were all, I mean, cell phones were kind of new at that point. Right. It was kind of this new thing.
- [42:18]
B
Right.
- [42:18]
A
Where do you think all the cell phone to antennas were mounted on the Trade center buildings.
- [42:23]
B
Yeah.
- [42:23]
A
Okay. And then when everybody, when the, when the Trade center buildings went down, everybody's calling, trying to call. The landlines were, were locked. I mean, it was a disaster.
- [42:33]
B
Yeah.
- [42:34]
A
And not only would. Here's another thing that was surreal. We were trying to figure out what was going on. Northern New Jersey and other parts of the area, you had tactical teams just walking the streets, fully kitted up, checkpoints and everywhere. I mean, it was crazy what was going on. They were like, they said one of, one of the terrorists supposedly used a phone booth. They came and ripped the phone booth right out of the ground and took. I mean it was insane what was going on. Right. So it was that type of we are going to not only react, but we're going to spectacularly overreact in some areas. So you had that going on too.
- [43:14]
B
What was the, how long were you in that position? What was your next job?
- [43:17]
A
I stayed in that position until February of 2002. I had already been lined up to go to FBI headquarters, take a program manager job in counterterrorism. And then that happened. And then, you know, I already had my orders. And then I left and I went to FBI headquarters and went, as the old saying goes, from the frying pan to the fire, right? Me talking. You wouldn't talk about a brutal environment. The way I, the way I told somebody, I said, look here. Imagine this. When you get there in the morning, you get a kick in the balls to say good morning. And then when you leave in the evenings, you get a kick in the ass to say thank you for your efforts today. Right, right. And that was the environment. It was a meat grinder. It was ugly. People were having nervous breakdown. It was. It was bad. Yeah, because we were. I would just say we were wounded as an organization.
- [44:07]
B
Tell me if this, if this is true, I would imagine there's some truth to it. Prior to 9 11, being in the counterterrorism department of the FBI, whatever it was maybe not as lucrative. Maybe it was okay. It was what it was.
- [44:26]
A
Lower priority.
- [44:27]
B
Lower priority. And that's where you happen to be now. We're in a post 911 FBI, and counterterrorism is the buzzword and the focus for years and years and years to come. And so it seems, if you go from this low priority job to you guys, what do you need?
- [44:46]
A
Well, it's not what do you need? It was, this is what we want, right? And then we said, but there's only some of us. And they would say, just try and get it done. And, you know, I was managing programs around the world. I mean, it was ridiculous when I first got. And people won't appreciate this for what it was, but I'll just. I get there, I walk in the door at FBI headquarters. I don't know anything about anything. One of the ladies who was there, she was one of the agent managers who was there, and she says, oh, you're Chris Piotta. And I said, yeah, hi. She goes, hi, my name's Maria. She goes, hang on a second. She comes over and brings me a stack of court affidavits. Like this high, okay, maybe 2 to 3ft high. She goes, all of these are due this week. You have to go and you have to figure out there's a way to process these FISA authority affidavits. I spent the whole first week in the judge's chambers of the chief justice of the FISA court going through these things and getting them reauthorized because all of our surveillance was down because these things were offline. Because it is, because they were sitting in this office and that's how things were. It was just. It was utter chaos. And it was just, don't worry about the mules. Just load the wagon, get things done. That's how it worked.
- [46:10]
B
Well, we got a few. We only got a few mules.
- [46:12]
A
That's it. They didn't care.
- [46:13]
B
Doesn't matter.
- [46:14]
A
Didn't care.
- [46:15]
B
Pull the wagon.
- [46:16]
A
That's it. That's it. And we did. And it was. It was a brutal environment, though. But. And I understood it. I didn't like it, but I understood it because of what happened and what the national leadership. How could you say all these technical surveillance operations are offline? Yeah, well, because we're waiting for it to be reauthorized. And that's what I mean, it was just a whole different environment.
- [46:38]
B
As you continued to climb the ladder of leadership and the FBI, was there ever a moment that you realized either how big the FBI is or the weight of what the FBI does?
- [47:04]
A
It started becoming more clear with every position, because in every position you get to see and hear more things and you're responsible for more things. And not only that, but most importantly, you're responsible for other people. Right. You have. You have people that work with you, people that work for you in programs, people that depend on you to help them get their job done. So it became very. The weight, as you call it, became more impressive as we went on because the consequences became greater and greater. And again, when you go from having two people work for you to 200 to 2000 to. I mean, at the end of my time with the Bureau, I had a staff of 5,500 people. And I had, I think our. For the sake of public discourse, I'll say my budget, my operating budget, formulation and execution was in excess of probably like 1.5 to $2 billion. Right. So I started out as a street agent, going out and talking to, you know, street level scumbags up to that.
- [48:12]
B
Right.
- [48:13]
A
So, you know, the weight does kind of accumulate. You start and you start sitting in meetings and you start hearing and seeing things that you leave your me. You leave the meeting and saying, are you kidding me? This is how we're doing things. Yeah.
- [48:26]
B
By the time you left the FBI, which would have been what year?
- [48:29]
A
I retired in 2020. January of 2020. Right before the world went to sleep from the health crisis.
- [48:37]
B
Oh, man. What. What a time to be in the FBI. From like, like we talked about the. From, from chapter one to the end, mid-90s, still like the tail End of the old school G men, you know the technology was just starting to, to develop and get smaller and, and,
- [49:03]
A
and
- [49:04]
B
911 and terrorism you know being a focal point and, and you worked from president to president to president. The president. What do you think of the FBI? I say all that just again just like to show what it up what a difference the beginning to the end of a career can be and especially in the one you just had. What was your takeaways? You left the FBI. As you looked back thinking about your whole career, how it changed.
- [49:40]
A
There was a violent shift after 9 11. The FBI went from being the world's premier law enforcement agency to a domestic security agency charged with protecting the American people. It was a 180 degree shift. Violent crime went from being number one priority to number eight priority. Nationally the leadership culture changed across the bureau. The whole bureau culture changed and we can get into that a little bit later. But it went downhill very quickly after 911 and the operational practices of the FBI I don't think were adequately monitored, upgraded, updated to suit the not only threat environment but the social and political environments as well. So it changed significantly. I will tell you this though Brent. I'd go back and do it again in a heartbeat if they let me but I'm too old and broken and torn up. But, but I saw the organization change. Not for the better in some ways. One thing I will say that the FBI did better is it raised its technological capability as these things back in the day everybody's like oh what is this computer garbage? And the FBI became much better in that cyber arena but culturally they didn't do what they needed to do.
- [51:14]
B
You know, it's not that I'm giving them a pass, I'm just being realistic about it. It's easier to maintain a culture of a place that I worked at because it's small. It, it's just easier.
- [51:28]
A
Right.
- [51:30]
B
Everything you just described that was happening to the FBI, both for a positive on the technology side and the negative on a, on a cultural side is an exact reflection of what was happening in America at the same time too. So again it's not giving them a pass. It's just understanding that when you have an organization that that's big more than likely whether they should or not. It's not what I'm saying that as America shifted at an alarming rate culturally as well and so it just kind of reflects the populace.
- [52:09]
A
It did to a point. But would I, what I looked at was, you know, as I moved into more senior leadership positions, we as the FBI were changing, the threat environment was changing. The social, political, economic environments were all shifting. But the mission of the FBI was to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. All right? So we started losing our ability to navigate the politics. We started losing our ability to stand alone as that monolithic organization that everybody could say, the FBI is not corruptible. We started losing our credibility. We started making mistakes. We started low. Let me rephrase this. The FBI will always say we never lowered any standards. Not on paper. Okay. But the way the standards were administered started changing.
- [53:08]
B
Yeah.
- [53:09]
A
So leadership started changing. Where we used to get our butts chewed out for certain things that maybe didn't meet standards or weren't up to FBI standards, there was a certain expectation that we were either the best at everything or we were really damn good. That started sliding. So a lot of things started changing over time, especially over. It accelerated significantly. In maybe the last. I would say, five to seven years, it started accelerating. And toward the end of my career, I could see it really starting now. I had ownership and control over a certain part of the organization that I tried to run like I was taught. But the rest of the organization, you know, did what they did. They were trying to run the place like it was Google. They were running the place like it was Netflix or something like that. And it just. You could see where it led us
- [54:02]
B
that that same creep was happening at the military at the same time. And. And also, I want to make sure that I'm clear. Like I said, I wasn't giving the FBI a pass. I'm saying I understand it, that they were a reflection, but they shouldn't be, because those standards should. Should be maintained. Things that are politically or socially acceptable now or being pushed should have no business when. When the only business that you guys are in should be stopping crime, keeping America safe, stopping terrorism. And I. You know, I say that I understand it, but I don't. I don't believe that it's right, because that should be your focus, not social norms and social acceptance.
- [54:48]
A
Agreed. And. And that's where. And of course, you know, the folks who came in after Robert Mueller was there, and he was. He was an intimidating, frightening man. All right? He just recently passed. He had, I think, Parkinson's. He succumbed to. But he was a formidable, frightening man. People be in meetings, you could see the sweat running down their face. I mean, in meetings, he was just that kind of guy. Former Marine officer in Vietnam, all that good stuff. You know, you could just tell the type, right? But when Jim Comey came On. Yeah. That's when everything started shifting to the left, I would say, a little bit. And the organization was exhausted. Jim Comey comes in, lightens things up a bit, which everybody needed, actually. I'll give him credit for that. He could tell everybody's kind of limping along after, I think it was 12 years of Robert Mueller kind of kicking tail.
- [55:38]
B
Right.
- [55:39]
A
And we were exhausted after 9, 11.
- [55:41]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [55:42]
A
But when Comey came in, everything started moving toward that private sector mindset. The. The new leadership model was that servant leadership and all that garbage, emotional intelligence, you know, and then nothing. Everything had to be on a freaking PowerPoint presentation and slide decks everywhere and good stuff. But, you know, every once in a while I would stop somebody and say, hey, every once in a while we got to squeeze in a little bit of investigative work right here and maybe, maybe solve some stuff, some cases, you know, put some people in jail, you know, whatever, you know, national security stuff. But the organization started taking that tilt, and it just started moving in that direction. And here's the thing, and this is where I bring this, why I bring this up, is because when Jim Comey came in, he felt as though society was changing. The FBI had to change with it. Yeah. And that's just talked about. And that's where we went. I say we kind of fell off the tracks a little bit. And all of the old tried and true FBI cultural norms were either minimized or discarded. Now, I ask you a question from your former life in the military. There are certain values and practices that are eternal. They do not ever go out of style.
- [56:54]
B
Correct.
- [56:55]
A
They never leave.
- [56:56]
B
And we call them soft truths.
- [56:58]
A
And that's. And that's how it is.
- [57:00]
B
Right, sof? Soft truth. Yep.
- [57:03]
A
Yeah. And we. We were willing to discard some of those things that made the FBI legendary. That made it what it was. Yeah.
- [57:11]
B
When, you know, when you. You talk about Comey and you talk about the. Maybe the. The change in the. And the trust of the FBI, do you agree that that's where it started? At least for me, when it comes to the Russia collusion.
- [57:29]
A
Right.
- [57:30]
B
Trump Russia collusion and Trump investigation, that kind of fell under his watch. And that one really, with some good investigative journalism, didn't take too long to get to the bottom of it. Yet the FBI never, never seemed to. To waiver or admit what everyone else had already found out, that this was clearly just paid by Hillary Clinton to start this. And the FBI doubled down on it. And that seemed where the beginning, that the FBI's becoming. Becoming more political than Just this staunch, you know, lighthouse of. Of. Of apolitical truth that we could trust.
- [58:13]
A
Well, at one point, the FBI's word was inviolable.
- [58:16]
B
Right.
- [58:17]
A
The FBI said it. That's true. That's how it is.
- [58:19]
B
Right.
- [58:19]
A
We lost that. We squandered it. During the Comey time, especially under that Crossfire hurricane operation, which was the Russia collusion issue, the senior leadership of the FBI started substituting their own political and ideological preferences for FBI mission parameters and FBI operating values. They had outcomes already in their mind that the investigations were then, I guess, conducted to validate those outcomes. And we had people of a certain thought process that were all together in that operation who were, you could say, opposed to the new President Trump at the time. And that's where everything started going downhill, because they were no longer able to maintain what I call emotional professionalism. They were upset, they were mad, they were. Whatever you want to call it. And none of that has any place in conducting law enforcement or national security investigative work. And they allowed it to happen.
- [59:32]
B
Absolutely. Speaking of FBI directors, he wouldn't be the last one you had interaction with. You continued. You had interaction with. With the current FBI director as well?
- [59:48]
A
Well, I. I worked for Christopher Wray, who came in after Jim Comey was fired by the. By the President Trump. Right.
- [59:54]
B
Yeah.
- [59:55]
A
Worked for Director Ray for the rest of my FBI tenure. I used to meet with him on my last job. We used to meet with him every morning.
- [60:04]
B
You know, Comey got so much coverage because of that, I. I don't know. If you'd asked me about him, I'd say, I don't know. I don't know much about him.
- [60:13]
A
Christopher Wray, right. Yeah. He came in after Comey, and what I tell people about him, where Comey got himself in trouble, was he was too far out there in the media, and he wanted too much exposure, and he was always on tv and he kind of made himself a easy target for the DC Snipers. Right. So. Right, yeah, the career snipers. Christopher Wray came in much more reserved, much more, I would say, monotone guy. He was a caretaker director where Comey came in looking to transform the FBI. Christopher Wray came in and just wanted to keep the ship off the rocks.
- [60:52]
B
Okay?
- [60:53]
A
Right, right. Didn't make a lot of changes, didn't do a lot of stuff. Wasn't a dynamic leader, so to speak. Like, Comey was a dynamic leader. People loved him. Oh. Just that he ran the organization into the off the cliff, but. But they loved him while he was doing it.
- [61:07]
B
Right.
- [61:07]
A
Christopher Ray, on the other hand, allowed himself to become what we called bubble wrapped immediately.
- [61:11]
B
Right.
- [61:12]
A
They isolated him, fed him all the. Everything's a good boss.
- [61:16]
B
Right.
- [61:17]
A
And then the top guys kind of move the organization in the direction they wanted it to go.
- [61:21]
B
It's crazy how much people can get away with when you're just a likable person. There's a lot of truth that Comey was likable.
- [61:31]
A
He was, he. He was the direct opposite of Mueller. Like I said, Mueller was a frightening man.
- [61:36]
B
Yeah.
- [61:37]
A
Comey always had a smile on his face, affable, self deprecating. He was 6, 8. Comey was a big, tall guy. Right. I mean, but he always made fun of his own height and everything. I mean, but people were always very at ease around him.
- [61:51]
B
Yeah.
- [61:51]
A
Where. When you were around Robert Mueller and you were zipped up tight, man, you were puckering. Right. And you know what?
- [61:57]
B
That's. That's actually what. That's. That's that G man almost, you know, aura that, that I want from. From my FBI.
- [62:06]
A
It's what we need to keep the edge.
- [62:08]
B
That's right.
- [62:08]
A
Okay. And we lost our edge when Comey came in and relaxed everything to a point where it became a free for all almost. And we were more worried about people's feelings than we were about operational effectiveness. And because somebody was upset about something, that became the priority, not whether or not we were doing a good job on rolling up criminals or preventing terrorism or, hey, here's another thing. Counter intelligence. We were getting our lunch eaten for years and years and years because it was a lower priority. And Mueller made it the number two priority after counterterrorism because we were just getting. Just killed out there. And, you know, we had to make those changes. But Comey came in and made it to where it's like, eh, you know, some of this stuff's okay. And, you know, tell me this, when is it okay for a line guy, say, like, if you were in a military unit, the private does not email the battalion commander directly to air grievance.
- [63:12]
B
Absolutely not.
- [63:13]
A
All right.
- [63:14]
B
Neither does a. Neither does a. A sergeant. Neither is a sergeant first class.
- [63:19]
A
Right.
- [63:19]
B
Like, chain of command is very.
- [63:21]
A
Yeah. It's just not. That's not the practice. Right. Well, under Comey, that became a chaotic environment where just people were just emailing him directly, and next thing you know, you're jumping through your own butthole trying to figure out what's going on, what's going. And then most people became very, very timid and scared.
- [63:36]
B
Right.
- [63:36]
A
And always worried about, you Know, did he get a complaint? Is something wrong? And what happens when you have a scared organization?
- [63:43]
B
You can't operate out of fear.
- [63:44]
A
You have an ineffective organization. And that started happening and it moved through the years with, with Ray. And now you want to talk about a scared organization?
- [63:54]
B
Well, there's, there's depends what you're scared of, right? I mean if you, if you're scared of some sort of like, you know, equal opportunity, like false accusation or are you scared of am I getting results? And if I'm not getting results, I'm going to have to answer for them. Those are two different types of scared, right. And one, one's one's healthy and, and one isn't.
- [64:22]
A
I'll go in between that continuum.
- [64:24]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [64:25]
A
How about the. I'm scared that I won't get promoted. I'm scared that I won't be liked by senior leadership. I'm scared I'll get a bad climate survey and it'll affect my promotability. That kind of lives in that environment all the way up to I get no results. And we used to joke about it with some people because everybody started taking different roads and we used to joke about it. Big cases, big problems, small cases, small problems, no cases, no problems. Right.
- [65:00]
B
You know, you say that, you say that. I've seen that. And the high level approvals of the tier one world where there were people we should have went after. But guess what? If a mission doesn't go, no problems.
- [65:20]
A
Exactly. And we had that same thing where you look at certain things and it would be like, are you kidding me? Because they felt that exposure if this doesn't go well. Right.
- [65:30]
B
You know, I know I, oh, I hate, I hate that. That's a funny way to put it.
- [65:35]
A
That's, that was always the joke with all of us is like, hey man, this guy, right? This guy or lady, he never did anything of consequence. But again, some of that wasn't their fault in some instances. But some of it, they sought those kind of end around because there was low risk.
- [65:51]
B
Right.
- [65:52]
A
And the FBI is just not in that kind of business. Brent. Right. Let me tell you something, and this is one thing I used to tell people. The FBI is always expected to be the heavy lifter. No matter what's going on. The FBI is a heavy lifter. And I had, and maybe we'll talk about my book in a little bit, but there's four, I had four rules I kept on my whiteboard about the FBI that I figured out over my time. Four rules. First rule was number One tough shit. That was my number one rule. It was written on my whiteboard. If bad things happen and things don't go according to plan, we don't buckle, we don't assume the fetal position. You figure it out. You work through it, because we're the FBI, right? Second rule. If it doesn't suck, we don't do it. I tell people that because if it was easily managed, other people would have already handled it. People expect the FBI to do the difficult, the dangerous, the complex, right? And I used to tell people we have to do things that suck because other people can't or won't. And when people are scared and their lives suck, they should always know the FBI is their best bet. Yeah, the third rule I had, it was funny too, because the director was in there reading him one day. He was. But the third rule is we don't assume, right? Do not assume. Because we're an investigative agency, we test for outcomes, we collect information, we investigate things, right? We don't assume because the cost of an assumption failure for us is huge. It could range from embarrassment up through people's lives. The last one was never be a liability. Wherever we show up, people should be glad to see us, even if they're not willing to overtly admit it. They should be glad to see us and that we're going to show up and bring horsepower, we're going to bring resource, we're going to bring authority, and we're going to be the best. Like I said, I was taught earlier, you either be the best at something or you better be really damn good. Yeah. And if we're not, if we're in charge, we're going to. We're going to pull the train, but we're going to be respectful of what has to be done and by whom. If we're not in charge, we're going to get behind and push. And we're not looking for accolades or credit. Right? Always be an asset. As I told people, you can't always show up and look for accolades. You can't show up and look for credit. There were many times I would show up places, the chief of police or whoever, what do you need? What do you want? That's your thing. You tell me. And they would sometimes say, can you please take this over?
- [68:32]
B
Right?
- [68:32]
A
You know, we would say, no, we'll take it, Chief, but we'll do it with you. You'll be with us, right?
- [68:37]
B
You know, I love that.
- [68:38]
A
Okay? But. But those are my four rules to live by. And, And I used to tell my People if, if you can't work your way through these four rules first. And they used to joke about it at this conference room and they would say something, I'd say, yeah, I know, I know. Rule number two, I get it. And they would, you know, Right. But, but that's what I learned from the old guys. And that's how I was able to, you know, quantify it down into four points that were the rules to live
- [69:03]
B
by, you know, and we'll get to it here in a second. But we were joking earlier about what you told Cash Patel. And then at some point we hit the realization like that's, that's just, that's not just good rules for the FBI. That's just good. You can apply that universally, basically everywhere.
- [69:20]
A
Every winning organization. Okay.
- [69:22]
B
And same applies to these four rules. You know, as, as a business owner, I'm, I'm thinking of hbtrt. I'm thinking of FRCC and like that being, applying do these overlay into business. And they, and they absolutely do. All four of those are just good cultural values to push on any organization.
- [69:48]
A
Well, we wanted it to be the way we did business.
- [69:51]
B
Right.
- [69:51]
A
It was the way we did things. Right. It was when we showed up, people knew, hey, this broke. Yeah. Too bad. We're going to figure this out. Oh, that's hard. Sure is. And that's why we're here, right? That type of stuff. Because I started hearing this in the, in the second to last posting I was in. I was the director of the terrorist Screening center for the US government. And we used to do 24 hour global tracking, interdiction work for terrorism. And it was a hard job, tough job, but we had phenomenal people who just. These people were soldiers, man. I mean, they were, they took the job serious, right? And they were protectors. And I told them this, I said, you guys enable everyone else that you know, to live a good, safe, productive life. And no one is ever going to show up at the, at the center and say, hey Brent, good job. Nothing happened today. No one's ever going to do that. Right. So I used to tell them, you guys do this because we're the protectors.
- [70:54]
B
Yeah.
- [70:54]
A
Which is what we do. And, but I started noticing every once in a while people started getting that whole like, well, how come we don't get credit for this? And how come we don't get awards? And how come we don't get like, that's not the job we signed up for. Yeah, right. And we did give them recognition. And the supervisors at the center Were. They were fantastic. They would do all these informal little things for them because you can only do so much in the government. You know how that is when it comes to awards and stuff. But there were. There were three things I told them when I'd sit with the senior leadership team. I said, look, the people here will run through walls for us if we can give them three things. Only three. I said, the first thing is we got to give them a mission or a purpose that they believe in, which they did. And that was counterterrorism. 24, 7. Okay? So a mission or purpose they believed in. The second thing was, is we gave them a workplace where, for the most part, they felt valued, heard, and appreciated. Now, you're always going to have a couple of tortured geniuses and unappreciated geniuses, right? You're always going to have those folks that no matter what you do, it's not good enough and whatever, but you just work with those folks. But. But for the most part, they felt valued, they felt heard, and. And they felt appreciated. And the last thing was, is we give them a leadership environment where they can count on leaders to be honest, objective, and courteous, along with providing good judgment as the norm. So how many of those three things, how many of those cost money? Zero.
- [72:39]
B
Nothing.
- [72:40]
A
But those are the first things that always ends up departing when things get tough during a crisis, people, those three things go away. Everybody starts yelling at each other. I used to tell people, hey, look, we're in a crisis. You got to have a good sense of humor and you got to forgive each other for things, because this will pass, right? This will pass, and you're going to have damaged relationships for decades. I saw people hated each other for 20 years after something that happened one time early on.
- [73:09]
B
So, you know, you said, you know, how much does that cost? And I was like, nothing. But of course, in my mind, the first thing I thought was, well, it might take some time, and money is time. And then. And then I looked at it. If we work our way backwards, they can count on their leaders. That actually cost you no amount of time. But what that cost you is to live a life that's. That's can clearly be seen what your morals and what you stand for and that you can be depended on. So that takes no extra time. That's just you being a good person
- [73:42]
A
that you pull the train, right?
- [73:45]
B
A workplace to be heard and appreciated. Now that. That does take some time. But to be honest with you, it takes so little time to walk by someone, be like, hey, Good job today. Glad you're here. Or how it takes so little time. We. And it goes far.
- [74:00]
A
We need this. You got it.
- [74:03]
B
Right, right.
- [74:05]
A
I used to have meetings, right? But we had meetings and, and my one. We had one meeting and the guys were complaining because they wanted another picnic table outside, in the break area, outside the building. Right.
- [74:18]
B
Sometimes it's sometimes just little things.
- [74:21]
A
So after the meeting, my number two in charge, he's. He's like, what? He's going nuts, right? And I said his name was Steve and he was a super dude, former army guy. I said, steve, I said, that's a win, man. Did you listen to them? They never said they needed anything to get their job done. Nothing was holding them back. They wanted a picnic table. I'll get them a picnic table.
- [74:41]
B
I love that. Right? Yeah.
- [74:43]
A
And exactly.
- [74:44]
B
It's just the way you, that you, you view that problem. One is one. And I get it for some, some of the hard nose, if you want to call it, or narrow focus, I'd actually call it like, we're the FBI. You're over here talking about picnic tables, just easily dismissed.
- [75:03]
A
To me, that's a win. Right?
- [75:04]
B
But if you just give them a picnic.
- [75:07]
A
Picnic table, man.
- [75:08]
B
That's all. That's all you need.
- [75:09]
A
Yeah. Is there anything holding you back from doing your job better, faster, or more efficiently? No, we have everything we need, but we. Like a picnic table. Got it.
- [75:15]
B
You know what? I'll get you to.
- [75:16]
A
Yeah. Easy, right? Easy. So that's what I mean, it's like.
- [75:20]
B
Like that, you know, I love it.
- [75:23]
A
You're gonna say that last point you were gonna hit, I cut you off. I'm sorry. No.
- [75:25]
B
Well, the last point was, you know, was give them a mission that they believe it, but that they believe in. But truly, whether. Whether you're a line worker on a, you know, at a factory or work at the FBI, it is everyone's job matters. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's. There's a reason there's a job there. And if that job wasn't there, something is not going to be get done without a doubt. And it's so simple. When no one acknowledges them, for them to feel like, well, who even cares?
- [75:58]
A
Why am I here?
- [75:59]
B
Why am I here?
- [75:59]
A
Tell you a quick story on why am I here? One of the. One of the organizations I oversaw was the Criminal Justice Information Services Division. They're located out in West Virginia. They're the repository for all of the FBI's criminal justice records. Fingerprints, biometrics, whenever you get pulled over. And the Cops up there clicking on his computer, they're checking our system. It's a national crime information center that we run. Okay.
- [76:23]
B
Okay.
- [76:24]
A
These are national Asset databasing for criminal justice operations. I went out and gave a town hall speech with these guys, and it was our largest division. They had like 2,000 people. So I'm standing up there talking and I said, somebody said something about like, well, you know, nobody even knows we're here. I said, stop. Let me stop you right there. I said, you all operate national asset programs. Your information and your services are used around the country and sometimes outside the country. And every sheriff's deputy, every police officer, every state trooper who interacts with the public and uses your systems, they know you're here, you're with them on the roadside, where they go.
- [77:07]
B
Exactly.
- [77:08]
A
And they were like, ah. I said, so don't shortchange what you do here because you're out of sight, out of mind. You run essential services when people are doing fingerprint and people are doing. They did a lot of other stuff, too. Same thing, you know, with other. Other technical stuff like our operational technology folks. They're the James Bond guys. All the cool shit you see on tv. Yeah, that's what they do. And I would tell them all, no one's going to tell you a good job because you did something clandestinely.
- [77:35]
B
Yeah, right.
- [77:36]
A
Happen.
- [77:36]
B
Oh, me too. One. One of the coolest museums I went to is the FBI museum in, in D.C. that's a. That's a. That's a cool. It's a cool museum.
- [77:47]
A
Yeah. I mean, they show you a little bit.
- [77:49]
B
I'm probably saying that the name of it wrong, but it's basically the FBI museum.
- [77:53]
A
Yeah, it's the FBI experience, they call it. Okay, but you see that, that's a little snapshot. But the guys who, ladies who are doing some of the really spooky James Bond stuff, you're never going to get that recognition. But they're essential people. But you got to give them. I called them three A's, okay? First of all, attention. And then you got to give them acceptance. And then you got to give affirmation. Right? So if you give attention, you give them that. You know, hey, we, we recognize your existence. Right, right. Exactly. You're here. Thank you very much.
- [78:33]
B
Right.
- [78:33]
A
We used to have people that could leave the organization and make triple their salary, but they never left. You know why? Because they loved what they did. Right? And then you do the whole acceptance. You do a good job. You're part of the. You're part of It, Right. You're part of the team and then you give them the affirmation afterwards, right?
- [78:53]
B
Yeah, the, yeah, it is the, the acceptance part. You're part of the team is like a great example of that is we'll just. Again, I'm, I'm, it's easier for me to pull a, a military or you know, a tier one example, but it always correlates over.
- [79:11]
A
Sure.
- [79:12]
B
You, you're not, you're not part of the assault team, but without your SIGINT capabilities, I wasn't getting the target. Hey, you're, you know, we couldn't have done it without you. You're, you're part of the team. Everyone wants to feel like they were part of this, of this effort. And again, too, too often do you know, the, the door kickers or the guy at the very end of the line get, get the accolades for that when, when everybody is a part of that. And the other thing I just want to mention, when it comes to attention, acceptance and affirmation, we're not. Because I've, I've talked to you enough now. We're not talking about an, in a woke way like don't, don't, don't get that twisted. Oh no, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about in a very work specific, hard nose way, part of the
- [80:05]
A
team that is mission focused.
- [80:07]
B
There you go. Mission focus. Not culturally focused. No, I don't, I don't care if you're a woman. I don't care if you're a minority. That's not what I'm accepting.
- [80:17]
A
Has nothing to do with it.
- [80:18]
B
I only accept performance.
- [80:21]
A
Well, results and. Which is.
- [80:23]
B
Yeah, which is results.
- [80:24]
A
Right.
- [80:24]
B
And regardless of skin color. Go ahead.
- [80:27]
A
The stuff that you mentioned just now I consider to be organizational poison.
- [80:32]
B
Yeah.
- [80:33]
A
Anytime you're doing it based on someone's immutable characteristics, someone's gender, someone's, you know, whatever protected group they're part of or whatever, you will have a failing. If not. Well, let me put this way. At best you'll have a mediocre organization.
- [80:49]
B
Right.
- [80:49]
A
At worst, you'll have a failing organization.
- [80:52]
B
And at best, you'll have a mediocre organization. If the high performers decide that the mission is worth it and they will continue through all that BS and drag everybody across the finish line with them. That's the only way they even maintain mediocre.
- [81:09]
A
Only do that for so long.
- [81:09]
B
They can only do it for so long.
- [81:11]
A
The fatigue sets in.
- [81:12]
B
They eventually leave.
- [81:13]
A
They will leave because they just, it's not worth it to them after a while.
- [81:16]
B
Absolutely. Right.
- [81:17]
A
And that's where you get to that mediocrity.
- [81:19]
B
Yeah.
- [81:19]
A
And you know, you see it everywhere in, you know, in our society now. I used to call it bureaucratic indifference.
- [81:27]
B
Yeah.
- [81:27]
A
Where it's like people would give you the shoulder shrug. We used to call it the bureau salute. You go in some places and they would say, what are you talking about? You know, shrugging your shoulders. Is that a yes? No. Is that a I don't care? Right, right. So, but, yeah, but, but those things there, I think we just talked about all leadership things. And those were the things that I learned over the course of my career working with the FBI and under the old, under the old guard. Right, right. They, they were tough, man. And they accepted. They didn't accept BS and they didn't care about how I felt. Felt. They said, are we protecting the American people? Are we solving cases? Are we? Now, they weren't hateful and they weren't mean and you didn't walk around throat punching everybody every day.
- [82:10]
B
Right.
- [82:11]
A
But they weren't these coddling, you know, new age leaders that, you know, were worried about emotional intelligence and that kind of garbage. But they were results oriented, accountability based.
- [82:24]
B
Yep.
- [82:24]
A
And they, and they were making sure, if you're not making things happen, then I'll get somebody who will.
- [82:29]
B
Yeah.
- [82:29]
A
Right.
- [82:31]
B
Funny you mentioned it because even I though I know it, I forget to appreciate it because it's almost impossible to fully do this every day. The FBI is doing its job every day successfully when nothing happens.
- [82:53]
A
For most. For many things. Yes.
- [82:54]
B
For many things.
- [82:55]
A
Right.
- [82:56]
B
But no one's going to say, hey, nothing happened today. Thank you.
- [83:00]
A
Yeah, that's not going to happen.
- [83:02]
B
Only when something goes wrong do they look at the FBI, go, why didn't you stop this? When you're like, well, we've stopped it for the last 465 days in a row. Doesn't matter what, got biased. But that, that is the world we're living in.
- [83:16]
A
Well, I have to go to the Hill a lot and sit in rooms with congressmen and senators. Fun group. And one of them asked me one time, how many terrorist attacks have you prevented? And I said, that's a difficult question to answer. And the reason, I said, why? Because if we harden the environment, if we set up overt security, we give the adversary harder environments to work in. We make sure that it is a hostile environment for them. They may change their behavior. They may choose other, softer targets. They may choose to do nothing. I can't prove that we prevented it, but we affected the adversary in a way that they didn't carry through on an operational plan because we hardened those environments. We, you know, we made things a hostile operating environment for them.
- [84:17]
B
Right.
- [84:17]
A
And not only that, but we're working with our partners and we're rolling them up. Right. And just because somebody gets rolled up doesn't mean it's in a newspaper. You know that.
- [84:25]
B
Yep, absolutely.
- [84:26]
A
So people get rolled up in places and they just get taken off the chessboard.
- [84:29]
B
Right. So essentially, our adversaries, every day, if they could, they would attack us without.
- [84:37]
A
Without consequence. Absolutely.
- [84:38]
B
Every day.
- [84:39]
A
Day, Absolutely.
- [84:40]
B
If they could, they would attack us. So how many attacks, you know, have. Have you prevented? The FBI has prevented an attack every day that there hasn't been. Every day there hasn't been one, we've prevented one.
- [84:53]
A
You could say that. Yeah.
- [84:55]
B
Yeah.
- [84:55]
A
But you got, you know, but the folks on the Hill want to. Want to be able to say, you know, we did 374. Right.
- [85:00]
B
They want tangible, quantifiable ones.
- [85:02]
A
I get that. Right. Which. Which you really can't do. Right. It's just the same thing. Like, you know, when you look at our military and you say, because we have this military that is powerful, how many. How many hostile actions were prevented because people were deterred from action?
- [85:20]
B
Right, exactly. Just being the most powerful military in the world every day that we are, deters. Deters China and Russia.
- [85:30]
A
Exactly.
- [85:30]
B
Because it goes back to. If they thought they could take. Yeah, they would.
- [85:34]
A
Well, you know, it comes down to this. When you go out and you give risk. You give risk management discussions. I used to give. Right. And I'd say, look, risk and security are very similar. And I'd say, I'll focus on security for right now. What is security? It's basically a concept we made up to feel better about things. It's about protecting things that are of worth and value to us. Okay, so what is security? One, it is a collection of inconveniences. Two, it's a collection of consequences. Three, it goes into likelihood. Four, proximity to self, and five, economics. And if you look at those couple of things for security, it also. Those are the components of risk. Those are also the components of how you conduct organizational operations. Right. Because if you look at it, people say, well, how do you. What do you mean? Well, one, what is. What is security inconvenience? I put a light up. I have a fence around my yard. My door's locked. It's inconvenient consequence. I have a very large dog in my house, you maybe get attacked and ripped to shreds. I'll call the police, you'll go to jail. Or you may encounter somebody who has very strong Second amendment skills. Okay. Consequence. So, you know, I mean, you get into that likelihood of happening. Yeah, that can happen, but the likelihood is zero.
- [87:05]
B
Right.
- [87:06]
A
How about this? I use this example. People say, well, give me an example. Every year in California, a lot of houses burned down. Every year happens like clockwork. I live in Florida. Do I give a right?
- [87:22]
B
Right.
- [87:23]
A
No.
- [87:23]
B
And. And like. And likeliness changes depending on. On. On area.
- [87:29]
A
And that's why you have a consistent assessment of the threat environment. Right, Right. So you're looking at likeliness. How about proximity to self may happen to you, but I'm good. Right, Right. So you look at that, and then the last part is economics. How many times have you seen an interview with a criminal and they say, why didn't you do this house? That wasn't worth it.
- [87:52]
B
Yeah.
- [87:54]
A
Or how about this? Why didn't you have the latest cybersecurity software on your system? Your system got compromised and people's data was stolen. I couldn't afford it, so I just thought I'd ride it out and just hopefully. We used to call it security through obscurity. I'm hoping they don't see me out here, and that doesn't work anymore. But you see what I mean? You go through those steps, and again, it's all organizational stuff, but it applies to what we used to do with the Bureau. And I used to go through those type of mental exercises with my team and sit there and say, guys, how are we doing here? When they would ask me to do certain things, like I told you earlier, some of the things, if we would have got caught, it would have been really unfortunate. We went through those exercises, guys, how did we do this? And that's. That's kind of the thought process.
- [88:42]
B
Yeah. I love the security through obscurity because, you know, guess what? Hang out. Hang out in the crowd. Don't. Don't look flashy, don't look rich, don't look different. And, and really, for the most part, no one, no one will notice you. And so many people set themselves apart and set themselves up for a higher likely of at risk.
- [89:09]
A
I think you can be noticeably obscure.
- [89:13]
B
You can't. You. You sure can be.
- [89:15]
A
Right.
- [89:15]
B
Yeah. You can be too obs. Yeah, you can. Yeah, absolutely.
- [89:18]
A
Right. And especially in the cyber world, if you don't have certain markers.
- [89:22]
B
Right.
- [89:23]
A
They know immediately. Gotcha. Okay. And it could be this you have an absence of something. Not a presence, but absence. And that was always what I used to. I think it was a Sherlock Holmes or something like somebody like that. But they said they always look for presence of the abnormal or absence of the normal. Right. And that. And that works. It's. And it's for cyber security. When we used to have to do undercover type of things online, man, those guys would pick you out. Like us, just a beacon.
- [89:54]
B
Yeah.
- [89:54]
A
You know, so things like that matter. The management matters, the leadership matters. And again, that's where we look at our operational practices. I always ask my guys this, too. Can you tell me the difference between what are we doing and what should we be doing?
- [90:16]
B
Yeah.
- [90:16]
A
And my guys will sit there and say, you know, it's like, what should we be doing here? And that's where I, you know, used to balance those things with the FBI operations is like, what should we be doing, folks? Not what are we doing? Because people say, well, this is our policy. Who writes a policy? We do. You know, people say that to me. Like, they would say that. It's like, well, we're following our policies. Like, well, who wrote that? Well, we did change it. Right?
- [90:41]
B
Yeah. I love that. Because at the end of the day, the. The only thing you have to do as a leader is care enough to ask that question.
- [90:49]
A
Yeah. What should we be doing here?
- [90:53]
B
Yeah. And. And if it's not, it goes back. All right, then. Then let's change it. Well, it will require a policy change, and people. People will plant that flag.
- [91:03]
A
Yeah.
- [91:04]
B
Like. Like it's immovable. And be like, well. And see? It's a policy change. Well, then we'll change the policy, like I said. But who wrote it? Oh, we did.
- [91:12]
A
Yeah.
- [91:12]
B
Well, we'll write another.
- [91:13]
A
It's our policy. Yeah. Right. Let's get rid of that. It doesn't work anymore. Yeah.
- [91:17]
B
I mean, but let's be honest. It's because telling no people no is so much easier than telling them yes. No requires. After you say the word no, it requires no more action from you.
- [91:29]
A
Well, it also releases you from further risk.
- [91:33]
B
Right.
- [91:33]
A
And that's where everybody gets that scared. And that's why I say a scared organization is not a productive or efficient or effective organization. And to bring the conversation back around to the Bureau. I look at the Bureau, they're a scared organization right now.
- [91:50]
B
I think they still are.
- [91:51]
A
Yeah.
- [91:52]
B
With the current leadership.
- [91:53]
A
Absolutely. They are a scared organization. How many people have been fired from the FBI since the new leadership came on Kash Patel? A lot. A Lot of people have been fired.
- [92:08]
B
And for what reasons? I have my guess because I believe they were trying to get rid of.
- [92:12]
A
Well, he said they were clearing out the old guard.
- [92:15]
B
Yeah, I was gonna call them the old guard, but yeah, the deep state.
- [92:19]
A
I think some people were rightfully fired because they again substituted their personal, ideological or political beliefs for FBI mission parameters. They should be disinvited from the organization immediately.
- [92:30]
B
Disinvited.
- [92:32]
A
Okay. They should be no longer there. There were folks who were carrying out their assigned duties under the previous administration's priorities, and they have been fired. And to me, that is a mistake.
- [92:48]
B
Right.
- [92:49]
A
Because now you're going to have a scared organization of somebody's going to say, well, hey, there's this really kind of difficult, controversial operation we have to do. Not me. Right. So you have a scared organization, people who failed what I consider to be like kind of loyalty tests. They've been fired. Pete, they went back. You remember the picture? And I just broke my heart too when I saw it during the BLM marches. They were having one of those marches in D.C. and they had a bunch of agents that knelt down. Do you remember that?
- [93:20]
B
I do. And they weren't the only ones to
- [93:23]
A
do it, but they, of course there were nice big pictures of FBI agents in there in their bulletproof vests, FBI written on them. Kneeling.
- [93:30]
B
Yes.
- [93:31]
A
In Lafayette Square. They went back and fired all of them. And, and, and there's some of them again, I agree with some. And some of them. I think that those firings show you that I did what I thought was best at the time. Now that there's a new leadership team here, I'm going to get fired for something I did years ago. Maybe with good intention, maybe not great outcome. And some of that's the cost of doing business. Now, those people at Lafayette park, when I saw that, I said, I don't fault the people who knelt. I felt who was in charge there, who allowed that situation to occur? Why was the composition of that group? I would say they're 80% females. And you're putting them out there in the middle of a potential crowd. They call it public discord environment. They should have had a bunch of guys from the violent crime squad standing out there, right? A bunch of linebacker looking dudes. And they should have said, hey. And as the BLM guys walk up, you say, hey, we're here today, FBI. We're here to make sure that all of you can exercise your constitutional rights. Have a great day. And if they said, aren't you going to take a Knee. The FBI doesn't kneel. Let's move. Let's go. Keep it moving.
- [94:46]
B
Right, that's right.
- [94:47]
A
We're here if you need us.
- [94:48]
B
Right. We don't kneel to protesters or rioters. We'll protect you, but we will not kneel to you.
- [94:54]
A
But what they did was they showed a social and political preference.
- [94:58]
B
Correct.
- [94:59]
A
Which is.
- [95:00]
B
They sure did.
- [95:01]
A
And again, that's where they started running off the rails on those type of things. They didn't know how to navigate them anymore. You think of somebody, old time G men would have, hey, you're taking a knee.
- [95:11]
B
Oh my gosh.
- [95:13]
A
Right.
- [95:13]
B
Wrap your mind around that question.
- [95:15]
A
We would have gotten our heads torn off by the old guys.
- [95:19]
B
Well, you wouldn't have because you had never kneeled.
- [95:23]
A
Correct. Because we were in that position of
- [95:26]
B
kneel because of the cult. That's right. Because the, because of the culture was what it should have been. There.
- [95:32]
A
Now people are going to say, well, if it was so great back then, how did 911 happen? That was an operational failure.
- [95:37]
B
Right?
- [95:37]
A
No doubt.
- [95:39]
B
Well, I'm not just, you know, blindly defending, but you cannot stop 100% of terrorism. You absolutely cannot. Well, that's. Well, hold on. Actually, let me quantify that for a second. To live in a free country the way we do and the way we demand to and will and should we
- [96:04]
A
have an open society.
- [96:05]
B
You will never stop terrorism. Now you can, you can greatly reduce it with, with great men and great organizations. Freedom has its price.
- [96:19]
A
It has a cost and it has a. It gives us an immediate vulnerability. Right, right. And the American people no longer accept that, that balance. I remember I used to tell people when I set to go to the Hill and talk to congressional members and, and one day I was in a room full of them, right? We had this. They wanted a briefing, they called it, but it's basically their chance to just sit in there and ask me questions. And I said, look, you've charged me with maintaining an imperfect balance between security and civil liberties. And then when something happens, you're asking me why I didn't do more. When there is nothing happening, you ask me why I'm trampling on everyone's civil rights. And they all sat there and said, yeah, yeah, we get it. Yeah, but, but that's where I think we've lost that awareness now. And, and, and I don't know how you get the American public back to an understanding that we have an open and free society that will always be used against us by adversaries.
- [97:22]
B
We, I believe it was Benjamin Franklin. This, this, this quote just is perfect for this. But those who would trade their freedoms for security deserve neither freedom or security. And it's true. You cannot have both. You cannot have complete freedom and complete security. Like there is a trade off.
- [97:43]
A
Well, they're inverse functions. Right, Right. You can balance them depending on situations, but they're inverse.
- [97:48]
B
Right. And it kind of goes back to tie it in what you said at the beginning when you got, when you said that tongue in cheek, you know, the, the pesky Constitution. Because if your job is security and you're balancing the free, the freedoms are things you have are certain freedoms are what keep you from complete security. And it is pesky if, if complete security is your goal.
- [98:15]
A
I said that, I said that jokingly and I know somebody clipped that out and said here's another FBI guy that doesn't believe in this Constitution. That's not true.
- [98:21]
B
Any of our listeners will understand exactly
- [98:23]
A
what, you know what I, you know what I liken it to, Brent. You can have a high performance car that you can hit say 10,000 rpm and watch that engine explode and fly apart or you can put a governor on it and say we're only going to let you get up to about 8,000 rpm. You can go higher.
- [98:48]
B
Right.
- [98:48]
A
But we're not going to allow you to because you'll, you'll damage it, you'll hurt yourself. And the, and the, and the return on investment isn't there. It's the same thing with our constitution and the rules. It's a governor for the authorities that the government can wield.
- [99:02]
B
That's a, that's a great example to govern. Yeah, I agree with that because you
- [99:07]
A
can rev it up there, but you're not going to like the results to,
- [99:11]
B
to shift a little bit more on, on, on current events and which, which we've already kind of touched on. It's like, you know, what do you think about the current climate of, of, of the FBI? Cash Patel himself has been, yeah. Just for me personally, you know, as, as I track him. I was, I was looking forward to having him in the seat in one aspect of Fresh Eyes. Someone you knew was it. Yeah, I'm gonna say something. Just, I'm just being honest for a second. I was tired of the FBI being political again. Just being completely transparent. I thought Cash Patel would probably run it slightly right. Political. Why wouldn't he? He's a, he's a Trump appointed. Right. Political. But hey, let's, let's see what happens when it's, when it's run politically motivated from the right. Will, will that do better? But he's, he's done some things that I thought were good. He goes out there and sometimes he's, he stood in front of, in front of Congress and he's held his ground and done a good job. He's come out and said, hey, we've got eight of the last top 10 FBI most wanted. That was great. He caught the pipe Bomber from, from January 6th. He's done good things, but he's also had some missteps that, again, just to, to name one, the, the Charlie Cook, Charlie Kirk. He announced that way prematurely, prematurely that they had, they had caught the, the perpetrator when they hadn't. Like, how do you say that? And I'm sure there's others that, that you can, you can claim. So. And just, just painting the whole picture of, of Cash Patel. What do you think about Cash Patel specifically?
- [101:09]
A
I think he, I think he has good intention. I think he means well. I think he's overmatched in the role that he's in right now. I, I don't, I mean, prior to this role, he's never supervised, you know, more than what, 10 people maybe. So to go from that to an organization of 38,000, global organization of 38,000 people with the power and authority that the FBI wields, that's a big jump. You know, I mean, that, that's a big jump. And I'll tell you, I think that he has not surrounded himself with the proper leadership team that will help him learn the job and learn the organization. And some of his decisions have been made with emotion and adrenaline versus measured decision making and information management. You cannot run FBI operations on social media. That's just not a good way to do business. You can't retract things. When you say we got them, right. Then you don't have them. Then you got them. Then you don't have them. You can't. You, you say, say and do certain things that actually give insight to the adversary when you say and do certain things. The FBI director does not need to fly around the country to every incident. That's why you have special agents in charge of field offices. You let your field commanders, if you do it, and if you don't have faith in your field commanders, then get new field commanders. But those types of things I think he will mature into. But this isn't an on the job. Right. Situation where he has a lot of time to grow into that role.
- [102:58]
B
Right.
- [102:59]
A
So if I was going to be Critical of him. That was where I'd be critical. He has done some good things. He's realigned priorities. He's realigned resources. He's done some good things that immediately impact crime in communities, which. That hits real close to home for folks. He has re energized certain programs in the criminal investigative world for the FBI. So he's done some good things, no doubt. But his job as a strategic leader of that organization is to. Going back to what we talked about is to reestablish a culture, a leadership environment and a set of operational practices that accomplish the mission of the FBI, which is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. And they do that through national security operations and criminal investigations. That's it in a nutshell. And he's a strategic leader that should be worried about those things. Not so much that lower level. I would consider to be. I hate to use the word tactical because everybody immediately thinks SWAT teams and stuff. But the more line work of the Bureau because when he was putting something out that we prevented for terrorist attacks, you're supposed to do that. That's what you're supposed to do. So you shouldn't be looking for a pat on the head.
- [104:24]
B
Right. He may be the first director, at least that I'm aware of that. That's, that's in a. A lawsuit. Well, he's interesting.
- [104:37]
A
He's bringing a lawsuit against publication. It's out in the public. The Atlantic.
- [104:43]
B
Right.
- [104:44]
A
For some of the things that they said about him in a published article indicating he might have some behavioral issues, maybe a little bit too much partying here and there. Alleged. All alleged. And he's bringing a lawsuit against this media publication. Now when you're a public figure like he is, there's a certain amount of slings and arrows you got to take. Right. But they're making. They're saying that, you know, this is obviously they're saying it's gone beyond just that public stuff. I don't think this lawsuit will ever make it to court. They'll settle out of court. Maybe the Atlantic at some point will publish a retraction or whatever. But I don't think it's going to go anywhere. But I think this is a distraction from the FBI's mission.
- [105:33]
B
Right.
- [105:34]
A
And things like this take away from the stature of the FBI. Right. The FBI had a certain stature that it was above the fray.
- [105:44]
B
Right.
- [105:44]
A
It wasn't in the fray. And now the FBI is down in the fray. And, and you hear some of these other stories like him using SWAT Team members to go places with his significant other. People are saying, is that something he should do? It's probably authorized. Maybe it's not great to do from an optics perspective. Right, right. I'll give you a quick story. You're saying he was getting death threats. Quick story. I used to get death threats, okay? But I figured this. If you want to send people, you may not get them back. Right? No problem. But it wouldn't. When I left the FBI, I stopped having the protection of the FBI.
- [106:30]
B
Right?
- [106:30]
A
So one day they call my wife. I'm on a trip. I was actually going up to see Andy Stumpf. Okay, I'm on a trip. I'm on an airplane. Agent calls my wife and says, hey, is your husband home? Chris Pahodo. I'm calling. I'm such. And so agent from Washington field office or whatever. She said, no, he's not here. Oh, well, we have something to tell them about. There's been a. We have duty to warn.
- [106:46]
B
Okay?
- [106:47]
A
My wife. So she's like, what are you talking about? What's going on? They won't tell her. We can't tell you. So now my wife's freaking out. So I finally get to an airport, I see all these messages and I call and I said, what's going on? She goes, yeah, they called here. I'm worried, and this and that. The other. All right, so I called this agent. What's going on? So she started telling me my name's on a list with this kind of bunch of dirt bags overseas. I said, okay, I get it. I used to get those before. I never told my wife about them because she shouldn't worry about that stuff. They didn't offer me any protection whatsoever. I was actually a former FBI agent, sworn agent, zero protection. But for him to do that with his significant other, it paints a bad picture, right? And that's where I. And I say, I'm not saying he can't do it, but should he do it? And I don't know if the public opinion gives him that latitude right Now.
- [107:50]
B
I will say this because things have just. They've just gone off the rails, like politically. In fact, when I'm done talking about this, it'll. It'll segue into my next question I want to talk to you about. I think historically that wouldn't have have been an issue. I'm sure the FBI director and his wife have been getting threats for as long as the FBI and director has had a wife.
- [108:16]
A
The FBI director has a protective detail, right?
- [108:20]
B
So I don't think that's anything new. What I think is new, the absolute hysteria. And I'm not to make it political, but just statistically from the left of people who will have an absolute hatred of someone they think is aligned with Trump or Trump himself and will do violent things. That is unprecedented. Charlie Kirk, Trump himself, our ICE law enforcement never used to have to go around in masks. I understand why they go around in masks, because the left will absolutely ruin their life.
- [109:05]
A
Well, they'll also threaten their families. Right?
- [109:08]
B
Absolutely.
- [109:09]
A
So I said if you want to threaten me.
- [109:11]
B
Right. So. So the left has gotten, as. Has gotten not just violent with their rhetoric, but with their actions as well.
- [109:19]
A
I understand that they've moved from spoken outrage to physical.
- [109:26]
B
Right.
- [109:27]
A
Violence.
- [109:28]
B
And. And I do problem. I don't ever want to be seen as creating some political divide, and I would never create a political divide that wasn't there or say something to create that political dividend. But to paint that picture in a less than accurate way would also not. Would be to put your head in the sand and not live in reality. That is what's happening right now.
- [109:51]
A
But that's where we depart from common sense.
- [109:54]
B
Right.
- [109:55]
A
Do you think that people would be upset with him protecting his significant other if it wasn't Kash Patel, if it wasn't somebody on the right? I mean, do you think. Do you. Do you not think that there were people when in the past administration that were given certain protection or certain oversight or escort certain places for. Of course it happens all the time. Right. But there was no outrage, so. Right. That's what I'm saying. Common sense takes a holiday on those things.
- [110:25]
B
It takes a holiday.
- [110:26]
A
And I just think that that's where we got to get back to being more of a civil society. We've lost that where we hate each other so badly that we've gotten away from just live and let live. Not live how I tell you to live. Right.
- [110:41]
B
Yeah.
- [110:41]
A
And that's kind of where we're at. It's bad.
- [110:44]
B
Speaking of Charlie Kirk, I'm interested to see what the FBI does about this, because the ballistic investigation, if you will, or data came back via the atf.
- [110:58]
A
Right.
- [110:59]
B
And of course, certain news or podcasters took that and in an unfortunate way to where it really came back. And however you wanted to hear those results, you could make a story to fit your narrative, which is this. The ATF came back and said that they cannot conclusively, with absolute certainty say that. That that bullet came from that gun.
- [111:30]
A
Correct.
- [111:31]
B
And so they ran with that. But what they also Couldn't say with certainty is that they don't know that it didn't come from that gun. All they know is the bullet was so mangled, fragmented, deformed, that they don't know is what they're saying they threw. Through their analysis, they could tell that it was a.30 caliber bullet, which is within the class of a.30 06.
- [112:00]
A
Right.
- [112:00]
B
So there's, there's definitely things that, that show. I won't go down the, the long list of other indicators that will clearly show that he is more than likely 99.999% the shooter. But the FBI is also going to look into this case ballistically and they haven't reported back yet. I'm just interested, what are your thoughts
- [112:25]
A
on this case as far as the ballistics? I'll stick to that.
- [112:30]
B
Yeah, we can start there.
- [112:31]
A
The ballistics on this matter, the way it was handled was odd. I don't know why they had ATF do it. The FBI could have done it. Okay. They could have kept it within FBI channels. Very rarely will you ever see a concurrent. Well, ATF came back inconclusive. Now we'll let the bureau check it because what happens if the bureau comes back and says we're also inconclusive? Okay. Now you just aided the defense. What if they come back and say, no, this is a match? Right, Right. I mean there's a lot of, there's a Pandora's box of problems. That, that's why it was always forbidden. I used to oversee the FBI laboratory and that's where they did the, the ballistics analysis. Right. They never ever. It was either one or, or the other, not both.
- [113:18]
B
Yeah.
- [113:18]
A
Because if you come back with conflicting results, now you've opened up a hornet's nest. Now I will tell you this. I don't think that this whole case was handled well from beginning till now when it came to crime scene management preservation evidence, everything's been weird and there have been gaps and irregularities and plus you get all the social media folks, you know, pointing this, that and the other out and whatever. But the gaps in irregularities have never been dispelled or explained by the government, whether it was a state government of Utah or the federal government.
- [113:57]
B
Right.
- [113:57]
A
So it gives people a lot of questions to ask. And I don't think the FBI, they've been put in a position of disadvantage by having now to do their own ballistics test, if that's what they're doing, to say, well, ATF said it's non conclusive, inconclusive. Now what does the FBI Say now you've really put them in a trick box, right?
- [114:20]
B
Yeah. I was really surprised myself that they had the ATF do it because at the unit we have our own ballistic testing, but when we want to confirm. Ballistic test. Ballistic testing, or have a third party essentially come in and look at it, we've always had the FBI do that because they are the, the FBI laboratories. Is, is, is the, is. Is the best.
- [114:47]
A
Well, it's that preeminent crime lab. Right. To speak. Right.
- [114:50]
B
So that's who we always go to. And when I saw they went to the atf. So why didn't, why didn't they go to the FBI only to find out, oh, they're going to go to the FBI as well, then why don't they just go to the FBI?
- [115:00]
A
Well, but that gives the appearance of answer shopping, right? Right.
- [115:04]
B
Yeah.
- [115:04]
A
So I don't know. I don't know why they did that. I don't know if that was a turf battle that somebody won or lost in D.C. maybe the FBI said, oh, no, thank you. Hard to tell, right? Hard to tell. But it's not a good practice, I'll put it that way.
- [115:18]
B
I'll say this about the sloppiness of the investigation and I'll let you reply to this. Anytime you have something that's that massive and then you go, you know, take it from a just large scale manhunt to a massive public figure media frenzy murder that starts on a college campus then and is now immediately going to go into a task force, if you want to call it of, of, of local and regional law enforcements. And the FBI gets theirs as soon as, as soon as they can. This isn't something they really normally practice and get to do in game time. And then when all these different players show up at the same time, there is this kind of possibly. And then you're the expert, this confusion of who takes what, who's doing what. Oh, you have this. The left hand isn't always talking to the right hand because it's just chaos. And then. And again, I'm not just saying that. That's from a train, SWAT teams all over the country. I trained a SWAT team that was in and around, you know, that area. And them just telling me just what an absolute cluster that 24 to 48 hours.
- [116:43]
A
Right.
- [116:44]
B
Was. And so there is some. It's not, I don't, it's not that I think that local law enforcement is just inept. I think they're good at what they do. This is something that they're not prepared for that. I don't know if anyone is prepared for this to happen in their backyard at that level. But. But kind of. What. What's your opinion of. Of that viewpoint and what I just said?
- [117:08]
A
Well, I. I do think there may have been a skill gap or a experience gap at the very beginning. But what I found was when you watch what happened, they didn't secure anything. Nothing was secured. There were people walking up and just taking stuff. There were people walking through the area. Nothing was secured. They didn't even create any kind of perimeter around that tent or whatever he was using. They didn't even do that. Nobody took charge right away. Everybody was kind of just running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I don't know who was in charge, if anybody, at any point.
- [117:48]
B
Right.
- [117:49]
A
And that's where everybody was kind of pointing, looking at each other. And you had an absence of command. Right. So I think that was the fundamental problem at first. It was everybody's kind of looking around. Absence of command, absence of, hey, here's what's going on. You do this, you do that type of thing. FBI shows up at some point because they get a call and say, hey, this just happened out here. So they roll up at some point. They're not even in charge. Because murder is not primarily a federal offense. Depends on manner and place as to how things happen, whether or not the federal government will pursue murder charges. But generally, it's a state issue. Bureau shows up, it's in a supporting role. Okay, what do you need? Like I said earlier, you show up, you say, yeah, what do you need, Chief? What do you need? You know, superintendent, whatever. I think that too much time passed before people actually got a grip. Well, they paved over the school, paved over the area. If I'm not mistaken.
- [118:53]
B
They eventually did.
- [118:54]
A
Yeah. And so who released it back to them to do that? I mean, if you were looking for any kind of other evidence, bullet fragments, if you're looking for. Pass through, if you're looking for. Because the bureau would have showed up and done a shooting reconstruction project, and because they've done it in other types of mass shootings and everything else to help collect that evidence or to look for the absence of evidence. Right. Remember, kind of the presence of the normal. Presence of the abnormal. Absence of the normal.
- [119:26]
B
Right.
- [119:27]
A
Well, that's what they would have done, but everything was already kind of, I would call bastardized, so to speak, because people have been all over it. And, you know, I just think there was a lack of. Lack of coordinated effort at the Beginning and there's always going to be some questions as to, you know, the Internet folks are looking for cover ups and conspiracies and everything else. And again, I always try to people, you got to balance evil and ineptitude, right? How much evil? How much ineptitude?
- [120:01]
B
Well, that's, that's evil. And ineptitude is a perfect background for this next question. And I, I have to ask it because we're living in a world where enough people have heard this or agree with this or are running with it. And again, I, I would from as a 25 year old, 25 year veteran of the FBI at a very high level, all these people on the Internet can talk all they want to about the FBI. You lived it. So with that being said, the people that think about the FBI is, and local law enforcement and basically everyone a part of this investigation is part of this cover up.
- [120:52]
A
Yeah.
- [120:52]
B
What, what would it take? Is it feasible? Is there any way, any, any, any way possible that the FBI politically at this level could be like, you know what, we're not going to, we're, we're going to go along with this narrative because someone told us to.
- [121:12]
A
I will, I'll do this from the bottom up. At the case agent level. Highly unlikely, highly unlikely that you would have people at the case agent level, the street agents that would largely go along with any kind of COVID up or conspiracy. You might have a few that would. But by and large there's a bunch of them that would say absolutely not, we're not. No, absolutely not. There'd be whistleblowers, they would go to the Hill, they would not participate. If you go up into middle management, they'd be like, oh, you know, I don't know, I better roll this up the chain. It's at the senior levels of the FBI that you'll get that we better do what the administration wants. And you know, DOJ said this and you know, we got to go with it. And that's where you'll see that, how would I put it? Ethical flexibility.
- [122:04]
B
Right.
- [122:05]
A
Yeah, right. Morally flexible. That's where you see that at the case agent level you will find people that are lousy agents. Maybe. Right. But that's a different story.
- [122:16]
B
Yeah, I always, even, even with that answer, this is of course a there, there has to be a, you know, a follow up question, a dominant effect. Well, it's next. What's next? And, and you said, because don't get me wrong, even though I'm anti conspiracy theory, do I think the government's batting A thousand. No, I, I don't. And so I. Never mind questions. And so for you to say, well, for this administration, would they cover it up for him? Someone's going to see that and go, look, he said it's a possibility. Which is, which is fine.
- [122:54]
A
It's, of course, it's highly unlikely at the lower level.
- [122:58]
B
But, you know, they're going to take. Yeah, they hear what they want to hear, of course, but. Right. They're gonna say it's a possibility. But of course, the, The. The logical sequence of this is the administration. Charlie Kirk wasn't an opponent. Wasn't an opponent of this administration.
- [123:17]
A
He was not hostile to the Oregon administration.
- [123:21]
B
In fact, he would be the opposite of that. He was a friend and a staunch ally of this administration. So they can have these conspiracy theories all they want, and in fact, their conspiracy theories in a small bubble look really good, or at least make you go, maybe. But as soon as you start expanding it out and looking at this in a logical sequence, it doesn't hold water to me.
- [123:48]
A
Well, I tell folks this one other thing. Having been on in the inside of the government, and you've been on the inside of a lot of these very sensitive issues as well, you're giving the government way too much credit, okay? That. The fact that they could pull this off and not have somebody leak or talk about it. And, you know, people have said, well, what about, like, 9, 11 being an inside job? I said, you have. We haven't even heard one deathbed confession.
- [124:14]
B
I know. Oh, I say it all the time,
- [124:16]
A
you know, So I told him, I said, again, nothing is impossible in that world of conspiracy, but it's highly, highly unlikely that you'll get that. You know, a whole organization, not one person will break ranks.
- [124:31]
B
Right.
- [124:31]
A
It's just highly unlike.
- [124:33]
B
I say it all the time. In fact, we have spent most of the time talking on this podcast about how inefficient the government is. And then. And you and most people that's. That's everyone that's heard us talk about the inefficiency of big government. Everyone, regardless of what side of the aisle they're on, they're going to go, well, yeah, they will agree on that and be like, of course the right wing is gonna. Is gonna. Are gonna say they're inefficient to a point of ineptness. And of course, the people that go all the way to the socialist left are gonna say, well, they're inefficient, but they. They'll get the job. They're Necessary evil. Either way, we've agreed on inefficiency. And the government's either inefficient or they're a functioning surgical machine that can get every level of the Utah judicial system. Security, local law enforcement, regional law enforcement, the FBI, federal law enforcement, and everyone in between to get on the same. The coroner's office to get on the same sheet of music.
- [125:41]
A
Highly unlikely.
- [125:42]
B
It's highly, highly unlikely. We can't go, go, go look at Nick Shirley's investigation and see how efficient the government is and what their quality control is like.
- [125:57]
A
Yeah, I mean, you know, he's showing. He's showing just how things really work behind the curtain. Right.
- [126:02]
B
It can happen both ways.
- [126:03]
A
Yeah. Yeah. So it's just. I don't think that. I don't think that's an issue. I just think what you have is. You have a convergence of ineptitude, maybe. Maybe some political maneuvering. Yeah. You know, like we talked about earlier, you don't. You never waste a good crisis. You know, you have agendas, competing agendas. So, I don't know. It'll be interesting once the court trial starts to see what comes out in court.
- [126:31]
B
Right, yeah.
- [126:32]
A
And see where that goes.
- [126:33]
B
Heck, yeah. You know, in fact, we talked about it earlier. Russian collusion, to some degree, was, even though they knew it was wrong, was kind of backed by higher ups at the FBI, and they couldn't even get that, you know, across the. Across the plate without it falling apart.
- [126:53]
A
Well, you look at anything like that long enough.
- [126:57]
B
Right.
- [126:57]
A
It will fall apart.
- [126:58]
B
Right.
- [126:59]
A
Or especially if you get people from outside the circle of folks trying to push that situation. Anybody looks at it, they're gonna say, what is this? This is ridiculous. And they're gonna say, wait, wait a minute. What are you doing? So it's just a matter of putting a spotlight on something and having objective people. And that was one of my. That was one of my biggest things, was we have to be objective. If you can't go into something objectively or as objectively as possible, you're already losing the battle. Because you go in with a bias, you go in with some sort of a prejudice or whatever you want to call it. And that's where, you know, folks lost their way on some of these really big cases and investigations. You mentioned the Crossfire hurricane. There was another one that I wrote about. It was the Olympic athletes were being abused by their doctor, a female gymnast.
- [127:54]
B
Right. Yep, I remember that story.
- [127:56]
A
An absolute debacle, disaster, whatever you want to call it, by the FBI. Mishandled at Every level. Leadership failure, operational failure. I mean, it was awful the way they handled it. It was an absolute failure on every level. Every level. And I'm thinking we're supposed to be the Dragon Slayers, man. These people, the young ladies, called the FBI directly for help, and they did nothing. They were incompetent, evil, and actually said this. Were they that shitty as people? Yeah. Or were they that bad at their jobs?
- [128:30]
B
Right.
- [128:32]
A
Hard to tell.
- [128:33]
B
It could only be one or the other, too. It really can only be one or the other.
- [128:36]
A
I don't, you know, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe they are shitty people that are bad at their jobs.
- [128:40]
B
Yeah.
- [128:40]
A
I don't know. But, but, but it comes down, but it comes down to that, right? I mean, were they that. Were they that. Did they not care or did they just not know how to do the job? So what.
- [128:53]
B
What made you want to write the book?
- [128:55]
A
My wife. She got sick of me sitting around complaining about things and telling her, this is what should be happening and what is this and what is that? And I'm, you know, and she's. And she said, finally, she said, listen, all the things that you knew, all the things that you learned, all the things you were taught are going to go away with you. She said, if you don't write them down, no one will ever know. And she said, you did well in your career. You were part of many, many things that were important and you should share them with people. And basically telling me, stop complaining to me, her and write them down. So that's where I kind of said, well, because I've been. People had asked me to write a book for a long time, and I said, nah, God, I don't want to be one of those guys. And then I finally thought to myself, if I could write a book that was a chronology of my time with the Bureau to show people kind of, hey, I was there. I rode the end of this bullwhip here and there. Also, it was more about the leadership lessons in them and the way to manage situations in crisis and deal with people. If I could mix that together and say, this was the FBI, I knew. This is what I learned. This is how things were for me. Maybe we can get back there. Because I told somebody one day, I said, the FBI's solution is back to the future. They got to look back and see what they were and then use that to see what they're going to be in the future for the American people.
- [130:32]
B
I'll tell you, I hope the listeners realize this. You Were dropping nuggets of wisdom and I wrote them down. We talked about them earlier. And if it's a truth, it will stand the test of time. It's correct now, it'll be correct in the future, is correct in the past. And I love your four tenets of
- [131:02]
A
the rules to live by the rules
- [131:04]
B
to live by what? To give your employees three things. I did, I wrote those down and I will implement them. And I'm, I'm. I just hope anyone who's listening reads your book, not just hears your story, but regardless of where they are in life, the truths that are in there and that the FBI taught you and that you were able to pass on are true to anyone's going to read that book.
- [131:31]
A
Well, thank you. I appreciate it. And I appreciate you having me on the show and being able to share some time with you and your audience, talk about the book a little bit and talk about basically where we're at. And this is like everybody needs, the world needs another leadership book, like a hole in the head. Okay, I disagree, but here's the point. Go ahead. But we keep making the same mistakes over and over and over.
- [131:57]
B
Exactly.
- [131:59]
A
So I look at it as. I want to share the leadership secrets. Secrets. They're not secrets. They were open secrets. Everybody else, they told us exactly how to do everything. It's whether or not we chose to ex. Again, accept and implement. Right.
- [132:13]
B
So, you know, you call them open secrets. I kind of take it to, to tactics. When you're looking for the truth of tactics in a, like inside the house, room clearing, if you're trying to figure it out for yourself, I think if you really looked long enough, hard enough, with enough experience, you will eventually get to Delta Force tactics. I mean, that is, that is what the truth and experience will lead you to. Or it'd be a lot easier if. If someone like me just told. Just told it to you. Well, you know what I mean? And so what I mean by that in this book is they're open secrets. And yes, because you lived it, they seem so simple to you, but wouldn't it be a lot easier rather than reliving all the tough things, you had to live to figure it out. Just a shortcut it and read your book.
- [133:11]
A
I don't know if I would have ever got to them, but there was a guy who said it one time and I thought it was a great saying and I apologize. I don't remember who said it, but he said he stood on the shoulders of giants to get where he got.
- [133:25]
B
Yeah, that's how I feel sometimes.
- [133:26]
A
And that. That's what I felt like I did there. I mean, those people. I didn't stand on their shoulders. I think they kind of gave me a piggyback ride.
- [133:33]
B
Right.
- [133:33]
A
You know, but they helped me get to where I got. I would like to share those ideas with. With folks, and maybe, like you said, they can get them. Get them to a place maybe a little quicker, maybe with a few less bumps, bruises, and scrapes.
- [133:45]
B
Yeah.
- [133:45]
A
And, you know, shortfalls on the way, and, you know, just see if we can get the FBI back that we deserve as the American people. And not only the FBI, but like you said, any organization can use these concepts.
- [133:58]
B
Right. These are organizational truths.
- [133:59]
A
Yeah. And if. And here's the thing, and I'll close with this. If an elite tier one organization like the FBI can fall from grace, if the FBI, the fabled FBI, could lose its way. It can happen to anybody.
- [134:18]
B
Now, we said on the show before, I mean, you've talked about it. Culture is everything. It's everything. And unfortunately, once you lose it, it's one of the hardest things to get back. And once you have. It's one of the easiest things to lose. And once you have it, it has to be safeguarded at all cost.
- [134:39]
A
Yeah. And the old guys. I'll tell you what, Brent, the old guys, that I was fortunate, they were the keepers of the faith, man.
- [134:45]
B
Right. Yeah.
- [134:46]
A
They were the keepers of the faith. And that's why I just hope to pass a little bit of that back to what I had.
- [134:52]
B
Chris, where can they get your book Wanted the FBI I Once knew.
- [134:55]
A
It's available on Amazon. It's a paperback and audiobook. It's on audible, so whatever your preference might be. And if anybody wants to hit me up on the socials, you see, because you're gonna link my socials, I'm on the X platform, and I do YouTube. I have my own YouTube channel.
- [135:12]
B
That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Tell them about your YouTube channel.
- [135:14]
A
I just renamed it. I had a long, complicated name before, and everybody in Jameson came back and said, all right, man. So I just changed. What was it before?
- [135:24]
B
What is it now?
- [135:25]
A
Ordinary people 9513. All big, one big word.
- [135:28]
B
Okay.
- [135:29]
A
Ordinary People. I named it because it was for the ordinary folks. And 9513 was my new agent class designator. So I wanted to make something unique, because if you put in Ordinary People, you get a whole cornucopia stuff.
- [135:41]
B
Yeah.
- [135:42]
A
And of course, the last time I talked to Jameson, he's like, all right, you Know, Jameson is right.
- [135:46]
B
Right.
- [135:47]
A
So he said you got to change that name. So I made it the Pihota Brief. Okay, The Pihota Brief at the Pihota Brief. Very simple, right?
- [135:55]
B
Yeah.
- [135:56]
A
And just me commenting on law enforcement, national security, social political issues, items of human interest. And I also have my dog on there as a part time content creator. She gets better ratings than I do on everything. So people love the dog.
- [136:13]
B
People like Max more than they like me.
- [136:14]
A
Yeah, that's. She gets great. She gets great traffic. I get none. So if anybody wants to stop by the channel, support the channel, we talk about FBI stuff, current events, all kind of things. And love to see if, you know, anybody has any questions, hit me up anything about the FBI. I'm willing to answer, comment on, except for anything classified. And I don't want anybody going to jail, me included.
- [136:37]
B
Last thing before I let you out of here.
- [136:38]
A
Yes, sir.
- [136:39]
B
Tell me a funny story.
- [136:40]
A
What?
- [136:41]
B
Tell me a funny story.
- [136:42]
A
I don't have any.
- [136:43]
B
25 years, the FBI, NASA, Air Force.
- [136:47]
A
I have no funny stories. None that I can remember.
- [136:51]
B
None that I can remember. There's.
- [136:53]
A
And a lot of the stories that we had were. I mean, I'm not kidding you, we lived through like serious times and maybe I'm just not a funny guy. I mean, maybe I have no sense of humor, but I'm trying to think of a funny story. God.
- [137:08]
B
So this, this isn't gonna help the audience, but. That's right, it'll. It'll help us. After, after the show we'll go to cigars in the garage and I'll tell you a funny story about your son as a Green Beret.
- [137:22]
A
That would be.
- [137:22]
B
But I won't do that to him.
- [137:24]
A
That'd be great to hear. I look forward to that. But man, I can't think of a funny story. God. It's a.
- [137:34]
B
Well, you. You're a dirty. Very serious time. There was a whole lot of joking around.
- [137:39]
A
I'm sure there was some fun.
- [137:40]
B
But you know, you're right. This. Even the worst of times, this is true. Whether you were funny or not, that's. That's for you to decide. But there's just something about jobs like these that just recruit some characters. Just. Just the funniest people I've ever met have done some of those serious jobs in the world.
- [138:00]
A
Oh, yeah? Yeah. And I think that I've met some of the best used car salesmen as FBI agents. Oh my God, these guys are the best bullshitters. I mean, these guys were the best. And those are the guys who can go out and recruit the best informants. Yeah, they can get all the stuff done and they can talk their way into places that you and I couldn't. Yeah. I mean, it's just.
- [138:19]
B
And that's. And that's a. I don't know if that's not really something you can teach. You know, like, you have to be. You can, you can, you can shape it a little bit and they can be better at it, but you're either born with that type of social engineering or, or you're not. And you just have to hope that you have enough of those guys on your team because you need them.
- [138:41]
A
Well, that's a. It's a resource to me.
- [138:43]
B
Yeah.
- [138:43]
A
You know, I mean, if you can find those guys and they can get into places and do things and, and talk to people, it's. It's a resource. And I'll tell you one thing. I know I said I was going to close with the other conversation, but people ask me a lot of times about female agents. And I said, look, basically the FBI female population is anywhere from like 15% to 20%. Maybe, maybe. And they would say, well, you know, what are they, what are the agents? Female agents? Like, I said, listen, they're great. They can go places and do things and they can talk to people that will never talk to me. People who never talked to me. And there was one time there was this young lady who was on our squad. We were both new agents. She was a very pleasant looking young lady, blonde. And we went out and talked to someone from the Middle east, and they're fascinated with blonde women.
- [139:31]
B
Okay.
- [139:32]
A
Fascinated because all their women have dark hair, right?
- [139:34]
B
Yeah.
- [139:35]
A
So we sit down at this table and I said, listen, I'm gonna sit off to the side. And this guy couldn't shut up. I mean, he never looked at me once. And this woman just smiled. Smiled at him and, you know, kind of flirted with him a little bit. Yeah, he couldn't shut his yap.
- [139:52]
B
I love it.
- [139:53]
A
And. And that's what I told people. Like, when you see female agents, they're valuable.
- [139:57]
B
Absolutely.
- [139:58]
A
And they're. And they can go places and talk to people. And you see a bunch of guys like me show up with short hair and suits, they're like, yeah, yeah.
- [140:05]
B
You know what's funny about that? You know, I say funny about that. So I'm gonna give you that as a funny story. The is that they would think that Arab men look down on women and wouldn't talk to them. And there are times that that. I've seen that. And that's true. It depends. Are we in a business setting? You know, are we. Is it. But I've also seen the exact opposite of exactly. You're talking about. They're. They're still men and they're still very much attracted to an attractive female.
- [140:37]
A
Absolutely.
- [140:38]
B
And you get that in that environment. And they will absolutely talk to women as well, depending on. Depending on the setting.
- [140:45]
A
Yeah, yeah. And this, this one here, man, it was. It was amazing, though. I was basically sitting there for a while thinking, oh, you please shut up. And he just couldn't shut up. And I was like, oh, you know, but. But it was a. Yeah.
- [140:56]
B
Well, Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show. And just one more. One more time. If you're interested, if you enjoyed the show, if you're still watching it, then you should probably go ahead and get his book, Wanted by the FBI. Wanted the FBI I once knew. You can find it on Amazon. And again, the. The podcast, the Piota Brief.
- [141:17]
A
The Piota Brief. Try to put out content day to day and what's going on and offer some, I guess you can say either insight, opinion, or humor.
- [141:28]
B
Well, there's. There's not a lack of things to cover these days, so I'm sure that keeps you a very busy person backed. All right, let's go to the garage and tell some more stories.
- [141:36]
A
Sir, thank you very much. Pleasure.
- [141:38]
B
Absolutely. Pleasure is all mine. Trust me. See you guys.