Episode 54 · The GaS Digital / Ray Kump Era
Inside the Cia (with John Kiriakou)
with John Kiriakou
Jul 18, 2017 · 1:41:38 · 12 segments, 126 moments indexed
- 3 min
Boatsmen, Sunburns, and Rich People's Empty Apartments
#Tim and Ray open riffing on beach-loving guys with kayaks, Tim's fantasy of being an "old salt," and pricing out Hamptons hotels for an upcoming gig. This spirals into a long riff on dog-walking and house-sitting for the ultra-rich in Tribeca and how their apartments feel more like hotels than homes.
5moments
- 0:57Tim got severe sunburn as a kid with alligator skin and bubbles on his back in July.
- 1:13Poor people don't experience summer the way rich people do with their pool photos on Instagram.
- 1:52Guy he knew strapped a kayak to his Jetta and went fishing every day after work.
- 2:08Tim claims he's one degree away from being a boatsman because he swam a lot as a kid.
- 2:27Tim insists he could navigate the open sea and prey on people like a pirate.
- 5 min
Setting Up the CIA Guest and Ranting About Panko Breadcrumbs
#Tim previews the upcoming call with a former CIA agent turned convicted leaker, riffs about whether they've been unfair to the CIA, and drifts into a bit about mozzarella stick breading (panko vs traditional breadcrumbs) before circling back to hype the guest.
10moments
- 3:04Hampton hotels charge $900 for a standard king room and don't want you out there for one night.
- 3:32The city exists in its own dimension where elites separate themselves from everyone else, but it's harder to do outside of it.
- 4:04Many comedians in New York have day jobs like dog-walking in multi-million-dollar apartments before they make a living at comedy.
- 4:27Tim sits on a couch in a $10 million Tribeca apartment with Justin Timberlake upstairs and Ryan Reynolds down the hall while doing nothing.
- 4:45A finance guy making $200,000 a year has never been inside an apartment like that, even as a guest.
- 5:27Knowing the chimney sweeps and dirt bags gets you into spaces that regular jobs never would expose you to.
- 6:12Rich people don't care if strangers are in their apartments because they have cameras and understand the separation of wealth.
- 6:38Having money in New York means never having real privacy with people constantly in and out—nannies, cleaners, dog walkers.
- 6:58Wealthy people in New York seem always at work even at home, living in sparsely decorated houses that feel like hotels.
- 7:33Tim and his guest acknowledge that the listener will never have the problems of the rich, unless his boat-related career takes off.
CIAJustin TimberlakeRyan ReynoldsTribecaSteven's Talk House
- 10 min
Comedy as the Last Circus People, Waiting on the CIA Call
#More riffing about the guest being a "disgrace," a tangent about working as a dog/house sitter among celebrities, a bit about a Ralph conversation on comics being "the last circus people" versus hardworking younger generations, and jokes about fantasy record deals and DM sliding.
10moments
- 7:58Tim compares the CIA's claims about being unfair to their actual history of misconduct.
- 8:13They're bringing on a former CIA agent who was jailed and wrote books after objecting to the torture program.
- 9:24Tim wants the agent's perspective to balance out their pretty negative view of the agency.
- 9:56It's a major failure on the agent's part professionally to call into their cynical show.
- 11:27Tim says he respects anyone willing to talk to them, especially if they need alimony payments.
- 12:19They joke about asking the CIA agent about bread crumbs when he calls in.
- 13:07Tim says he's been waiting for ISIS or Mossad to recruit him.
- 13:59Tim describes being in a phase where things are going well but he lacks the wealthy friends with Hamptons houses that come with real success.
- 15:15Ralph pointed out that everyone on their network is either a drug addict or a former drug addict with no real family relationships.
- 15:32Comics are the last circus people—a weird, corny world disconnected from how regular people actually live and work.
CIABush administrationThe HamptonsStephen TalkhousePractical Jokers
- 3 min
Waiting for John Kiriakou to Call In
#Tim and Bobby joke about tech issues getting the CIA guest on the line, riff on his prison memoir about learning survival skills, and joke about the deputy CIA director trolling him on Twitter about "dropping the soap" before jail.
7moments
- 17:55Tim jokes about getting internet out of a potato.
- 18:30John Kiriakou left the CIA, went to prison for leaking state secrets, and says listening to real-ass podcasts got him through it.
- 18:48Tim speculates the book is about prison lessons, suggesting Kiriakou learned mortgage fraud while inside.
- 19:11Kiriakou's post-prison plan involves getting involved in prison reform, which Tim sees as likely to send him back.
- 19:33The CIA's deputy director was trolling Kiriakou on Twitter before he went to jail with a soap-dropping joke.
- 19:48Tim calls the CIA's joke hacky and bad, questioning what kind of infantile organization makes that line.
- 20:13A CIA agent calling in can't have a smooth appearance on the show like a stoned documentary filmmaker or writer would.
CIALouis J
- 15 min
Former CIA officer John Kiriakou joins to discuss his book "Doing Time Like a Spy," his 2007 ABC News interview confirming the CIA's torture program, being prosecuted and imprisoned, a bizarre prison incident where guards tried to incite another inmate to kill him, and the early history of the CIA's enhanced interrogation program including Mitchell and Jessen.
18moments
- 20:42Tim asks how to pronounce Kiriakou's last name.
- 21:00The book 'Doing Time Like a Spy' chronicles Kiriakou's 30-month prison sentence and how CIA skills helped him survive it.
- 21:43Kiriakou was one of the first anti-torture whistleblowers, confirming in a 2007 ABC News interview that CIA torture was official U.S. policy approved by the president.
- 22:15He received a 30-month sentence but served only 23 months due to good behavior, forfeiting halfway house time because he kept writing a blog from prison.
- 22:56While imprisoned, Kiriakou wrote an open letter about daily life that went viral, getting over a million hits and attracting Jake Tapper and 60 Minutes to the prison.
- 23:43Guards told Kiriakou that an Arab prisoner he'd greeted in Arabic had called Pakistan to have him killed, a claim he later realized made no sense.
- 24:49The guards claimed the prisoner was the uncle of the Times Square bomber, but the bomber was Pakistani while the prisoner was Iraqi—exposing the setup as amateurish.
- 25:40Kiriakou reported the guards' attempted incitement to violence as a federal crime: conspiracy to incite violence in a federal facility, a class D felony punishable by two years.
- 26:29In 2002, Kiriakou was the only one of 14 people who declined to be trained in torture techniques, citing ethical and legal concerns.
- 27:05In December 2007, after three and a half years out of the CIA, ABC News reporter Brian Ross called claiming a source said Kiriakou had tortured Abu Zubaydah.
- 27:42President Bush denied torture on TV while simultaneously suggesting any torture was the work of a rogue CIA officer, prompting Kiriakou to decide to tell the truth on camera.
- 28:51After the FBI closed its investigation finding no crime in December 2008, the CIA secretly asked the Obama Justice Department to reopen the case.
- 29:31Kiriakou left the CIA in 2004 to spend time with his two young sons living with his ex-wife in Ohio rather than deploy overseas again.
- 30:50Desperate to go to Afghanistan, Kiriakou threatened to walk straight to Exxon with his Arabic skills unless the deputy director sent him—within 24 hours he was deployed to Pakistan as chief of counterterrorism operations.
- 32:01In Pakistan, the CIA was so obsessed with killing Osama bin Laden that it took months before anyone asked what to do if they actually caught someone.
- 34:19In May 2002, a senior officer invited Kiriakou to training in 'enhanced interrogation techniques'—waterboarding, extreme heat, stress positions, isolation, sleep deprivation, and walling.
- 35:20A senior officer warned Kiriakou that torture is a slippery slope: someone will kill a prisoner, triggering congressional and Justice Department investigations that could land him in prison.
- 35:48Despite Kiriakou's prediction of consequences, no congressional investigation occurred, no Justice Department investigation followed, and Obama declined even to establish a ceremonial commission.
John KiriakouPresident BushCIAAbu ZubaydahBarack ObamaABC NewsBrian RossMitchell and Jessen+3 more
- 12 min
Kiriakou details Abu Zubaydah's capture, being waterboarded 83 times, the CIA pushing the FBI out of the interrogation, and the fabrication of intelligence credit. He also discusses the "sociopath" female CIA officer later profiled in Zero Dark Thirty and the deadly Khost, Afghanistan suicide bombing tied to her circle.
20moments
- 36:14Tim notes that CIA officers shouldn't face prosecution if Justice Department approved their techniques, but nobody was authorized to murder people during interrogations or freeze them to death.
- 36:50Guest explains the CIA kept the most important, senior, and controversial prisoners for themselves, while grunts captured on the battlefield went to the military.
- 37:28Abu Zubaydah was shot by a Pakistani policeman with an AK-47 in the thigh, groin, and stomach, taking months to recover before interrogation.
- 37:51FBI agent Ali Sufan used rapport-based interrogation on Zubaydah and obtained actionable intelligence that disrupted terrorist attacks.
- 38:24A turf war between CIA and FBI over jurisdiction led CIA director George Tenet to ask President Bush to expel the FBI from the secret prison location.
- 39:02Within hours of the FBI's expulsion on August 1, 2002, the CIA began torturing Zubaydah, starting with waterboarding on day one despite protocols calling for least-severe techniques first.
- 39:38Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times and went into convulsions so severe they had to revive him.
- 40:44The CIA believed Zubaydah was the crown jewel who would crack Al Qaeda, but confused him with another Maher Zubaydah living in Montana.
- 41:30After waterboarding failed to produce results, interrogators put Zubaydah in a dog cage for two weeks and dumped cockroaches on him to exploit his irrational fear.
- 41:56Contractors Mitchell and Jessen insisted on continuing torture despite headquarters determining Zubaydah had given everything, claiming there might be something he hadn't revealed.
- 42:21Mitchell and Jessen took the $81 million CIA contract and falsely reported Ali Sufan's pre-torture intelligence as their own work product.
- 43:18Tim's guest says the CIA ran headfirst into the torture program with enthusiasm, unlike their reluctant participation in the Iraq War.
- 43:56The CIA deliberately asked the Justice Department for the harshest techniques possible, expecting lawyers to reject some, but the administration approved everything.
- 44:33A female CIA officer profiled in Zero Dark Thirty witnessed the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and was a chief defender of the torture program.
- 45:38Guest attributes the torture program's embrace to widespread guilt among CIA leadership about failing to prevent September 11th.
- 46:06Guest characterizes the female CIA officer as a sociopath who enjoyed watching torture, flying to secret locations to observe interrogations for pleasure.
- 46:25Despite a major intelligence failure not sharing terrorist information with the FBI, the officer was promoted and placed in the Situation Room during the Bin Laden raid.
- 46:54The officer repeatedly failed over the years but remained valued for her institutional knowledge of Al Qaeda from her time at the Bin Laden unit.
- 47:17Guest faults the CIA for keeping the officer around because she was skilled at ingratiating herself with people more important than her.
- 47:36A clique of women at the branch chief level in the Counterterrorism Center socialized together daily, likened to the Real Housewives of the CIA.
Ali SufantortureCIAAbu ZubaydahGeorge TenetMitchell and JessenFBIGeorge W. Bush+6 more
- 12 min
Discussion of the CIA's Office of Public Affairs shaping Hollywood films like Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, John Brennan's career and closeness to Obama, the CIA's fear/threat matrix used to manipulate presidents, and the idea of a permanent war-based economy benefiting D.C. elites.
12moments
- 47:57A CIA officer with no operational, security, or weapons training was made Chief of Base in Khos, Afghanistan solely for promotion purposes.
- 48:09An unvetted volunteer claiming to know Bin Laden's location was allowed onto the compound without being frisked or searched, then detonated a bomb killing half a dozen CIA officers including the Chief of Base.
- 48:48The CIA's Office of Public Affairs maintains a dedicated office to shape Hollywood studio productions, similar to how J. Edgar Hoover's FBI crafted its public image in the 1950s.
- 49:36Ben Affleck walked through CIA headquarters without a security escort during the filming of Argo.
- 50:43Tim raises questions about whether CIA officers had critical discussions about 9/11 beyond the standard narrative, given Saudi Arabia's possible involvement and the apparent state backing of the attack.
- 51:28The CIA and FBI had intense institutional hatred and refused to share information unless asked, a rivalry that contributed to the intelligence failure before 9/11.
- 52:21The CIA and FBI didn't have access to each other's databases, so even when the CIA collected information about terrorists in the United States, it required a specific person in the Counterterrorism Center to manually decide whether to share it.
- 53:48John Brennan was probably one of the worst CIA directors in modern history because he was intensely partisan and too close to President Obama, unable to challenge the president when necessary.
- 55:10Judge Webster was the closest to an optimal CIA director because he had been both an FBI and CIA director and could actually stand up to presidents.
- 56:07The CIA deliberately seduces inexperienced presidents by showing them highly classified secrets and sensitive intelligence, hooking them so they never question the agency.
- 58:09The threat matrix given to the president daily is unvetted and unanalyzed information that includes claims from anyone who walks into an embassy, intentionally keeping fear elevated to justify increased counter-terrorism spending.
- 59:40America has entered a permanent war-based economy where continued growth requires ongoing military conflict, which is why Washington D.C. now has the most millionaires per capita in the country.
CIAJohn BrennanFBIZero Dark ThirtyBarack ObamaBlackwaterDynCorpJudge Webster+9 more
- 12 min
Kiriakou argues the post-9/11 Al Qaeda threat was wildly exaggerated, discusses mission creep in Afghanistan, why the CIA prefers inexperienced presidents, why they distrust Trump for being uncontrollable, and touches on the Council on Foreign Relations as an elite consensus-building club.
11moments
- 1:00:21The CIA follows J. Edgar Hoover's playbook, securing massive budget increases year after year by hyping existential threats.
- 1:00:44Post-9/11 fear of Al Qaeda was wildly overblown; Senator Jean Shaheen said fewer than 50 fighters remained in Afghanistan a year after the attacks.
- 1:01:26The mission in Afghanistan shifted repeatedly—from destroying Al Qaeda to destroying the Taliban to rebuilding the country—prolonging a pointless occupation.
- 1:02:34Captured Al Qaeda recruits were teenagers who cried for their mothers, hardly the fearsome enemy Americans feared.
- 1:03:37Intelligence officials convinced themselves terrorism has no end and that declaring victory is impossible, guaranteeing perpetual war.
- 1:03:59Post-9/11, the CIA deliberately fed the public information grossly different from what it knew to be true.
- 1:05:32The CIA hates Trump because he's impossible to control, whereas they prefer presidents they can manipulate easily.
- 1:06:27There's no good guy in the Trump-Russia situation: not the CIA, not Russia, and not Trump.
- 1:07:48The Council on Foreign Relations isn't a secret CIA front—it's mostly wealthy, well-meaning businesspeople who want to influence foreign policy.
- 1:10:19The CFR and similar think tanks create consensus on economic and foreign policy that gets adopted by people in power through shared social circles and schools.
- 1:11:22The CIA spied on the congressional commission investigating Bush-era torture, despite Brennan's denials.
Al-QaedaDonald TrumpCouncil on Foreign RelationsTalibanJ. Edgar HooverJohn BrennanHenry KissingerJean Shaheen+1 more
- 15 min
Kiriakou discusses CIA spying on the Senate torture investigation, Dianne Feinstein's inaction, the theory that the CIA killed JFK's mistress Mary Meyer to hide Kennedy's plan to dismantle the agency, Michael Hastings' suspicious death, and two Saudi princes found in Abu Zubaydah's address book who died mysteriously.
10moments
- 1:12:01Tim asks why criminal investigations weren't opened against John Brennan for hacking the Senate Intelligence Committee's computers.
- 1:12:35Lack of congressional oversight on the CIA—instead of oversight, there's congressional cheerleading.
- 1:14:01Peter Janney's book 'Mary's Mosaic' uses CIA and DOD documents to argue the agency killed Mary Meyer, Kennedy's mistress, to prevent her from disclosing his plans to dismantle the CIA.
- 1:15:24Journalist Michael Hastings died in a suspicious car accident while investigating powerful people and after telling friends the FBI was tapping him.
- 1:17:19Even Hastings's own family believed the police investigation, but an intelligence background makes it harder to take anything off the table.
- 1:18:02The CIA kept the 1953 coup in Iran secret for 30 to 40 years—the agency's capability for secrecy shouldn't be underestimated.
- 1:19:05Many CIA officials are idiots, and coordinating complex operations with everyone keeping their mouth shut is harder than people think.
- 1:19:54The Saudi Arabia angle in 9/11 remains inadequately explained to the American public, leaving space for conspiracy and conjecture.
- 1:21:15Two Saudi princes found in Abu Zubaida's address book died mysteriously shortly after—one in a car accident, the other from dehydration while camping in the desert.
- 1:26:02The Navy dumped Bin Laden's body at sea without offering proof to Americans, and the decision was probably stupid rather than calculated.
Dianne FeinsteinJohn BrennanCIASaudi ArabiaFrank ChurchJohn F. KennedyMary Meyertorture+8 more
- 6 min
Kiriakou backs Seymour Hersh's contested account of the Bin Laden raid, describes a mysterious Saudi radar shutdown suggesting secret Israeli-Saudi cooperation against Iran, downplays pipeline theories about Middle East wars in favor of rare earth mineral interests in Afghanistan, and closes with stories about running into fellow ex-CIA figures like Colin Powell and John McLaughlin around Virginia.
10moments
- 1:27:07Israeli jets conducted a dry run crossing Saudi Arabia to UAE and back, with Saudis shutting off their ground-based radar.
- 1:27:32Tim identifies a behind-the-scenes alliance between Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar against Iran.
- 1:28:18Tim argues fracking has made Middle Eastern oil less relevant and doubts the pipeline motivation theory.
- 1:28:32Rare earth minerals used in everything from car bumpers to nuclear missiles are the real geopolitical prize, not oil.
- 1:28:56Afghanistan's rare mineral abundance likely became a motivating factor after 2002 when the deposits were discovered.
- 1:29:25Tim asks if intelligence officials living in Virginia constantly bump into each other at Whole Foods and restaurants.
- 1:29:49Guest encountered a hostile woman at Barnes and Noble who refused to speak to him, saying 'I don't talk to traders.'
- 1:30:45Guest ran into former CIA deputy and acting director John McLaughlin at a used bookstore in Washington D.C.
- 1:31:02Tim asks about deep cover operatives with wiped fingerprints who completely disappear from the system.
- 1:32:02Guest reveals the woman mentioned may face human rights charges in Europe and cannot travel outside the US after retiring.
John KiriakouJohn McLaughlinDoing Time Like a SpyColin PowellAfghanistanIranDelta BurkeEd Begley Jr.+4 more
- 8 min
Post-Interview Debrief: Best Episode Ever?
#Tim and Ray react to the interview, calling it possibly the best they've ever done, discussing Kiriakou's earnestness, the revelation about CIA-FBI institutional hatred, the murdered Saudi princes detail, and joking about wanting the "sociopath" female CIA officer to come on the show.
12moments
- 1:33:57Tim calls the interview one of the best episodes they've ever done.
- 1:34:13He wanted to hate the guest but found himself respecting him instead.
- 1:34:31The guest got them on his good side by asking thoughtful questions and flattering them.
- 1:34:48Tim notes how interesting it is to interview someone who actually ran the CIA at a high level.
- 1:35:10They discuss wanting to get the woman from the Pearl Harbor documentary on the show.
- 1:35:46Tim explains how people become radicalized when someone close to them dies and they get angry.
- 1:36:23The guest seemed pragmatic, claiming about 25% of conspiracy theories are probably real.
- 1:36:44Tim found the mechanics of how these agencies operate interesting, including details about princes being killed.
- 1:37:24Saudi Arabia and Israel cooperate because they both hate Iran—enemy of my enemy scenario.
- 1:38:18The CIA and FBI apparently hated each other internally during the 9/11 period, not cooperating as expected.
- 1:38:44Tim notes the absurdity of doing a deep CIA interview and then immediately having to plug comedy tour dates.
- 1:39:28He promotes tour dates and the Crazy Bus tour signup on timdylancomedy.com.
DC ImprovZany'sGaS DigitalDead Crow ComedyLoftMohegan SunIranStevenson's Talk House+5 more
- 1 min
Tim runs through upcoming tour dates (Chicago, Lansing, the Hamptons, Wilmington, Mohegan Sun, DC), plugs the bus tour and Guinea Pig project, and closes with a Wimbledon joke and a CIA send-off line.
1moment
- 1:41:07Tim says they've reached an hour 45 and can't get into Wimbledon now