YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → An Interview With Coleen Rowley (Minneapolis FBI & Whistleblower)

An Interview With Coleen Rowley (Minneapolis FBI & Whistleblower) — Transcript

by The Darkened Hour · 16,245 words · 2,592 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00we'll intervene whenever we decide it's
0:02in our national security interest to
0:04intervene and if you don't like it
0:08lump it
0:09the problem with america is not that we
0:10go around rotting around the world
0:12imposing ourselves the problem with
0:14america in the last 10 15 years since
0:17the end of the cold war really in the
0:18last 60 years is that we've been too
0:20slow to get involved i don't know how
0:22many iraqi civilians were killed but i
0:24can assure you that the number is the
0:26absolute minimal that it's possible
0:29in modern warfare
0:30every nation
0:32in every region
0:34now has a decision to make
0:37either you are with us
0:39or you are with the terrorists
0:42that land over there is yours
0:45you'll go back to it one day
0:47because your fight will prevail and
0:50you'll have your homes and your mosques
0:52back again because your cause is right
0:55and god is on your side
0:59welcome to the darkened hour
1:04welcome to another episode of the
1:05darkened hour i'm your host adam
1:07fitzgerald with me today is colleen
1:10rowley
1:11colleen has served as a special agent
1:13with the fbi and was assigned to the
1:14omaha nebraska jackson mississippi
1:16divisions and beginning in 1984 she
1:19spent six years working in the new york
1:20city field office on investigations
1:23evolving italian organized crime during
1:25this time she served three temporary
1:27assignments in the united states embassy
1:29in paris and the consulate in montreal
1:32in 1990 she was transferred to the fbi's
1:33minneapolis field office where she
1:36became chief division california in 2002
1:39rowley wrote a memo to fbi director
1:41robert mueller detailing the mishandling
1:43of the intelligence her office had
1:45gathered and later that year testified
1:47before the senate and also testified
1:50before the 911 commission about the
1:52fbi's pre-911 lapses due to its internal
1:55organization and mishandling of
1:56information in 2006 she ran as a
1:59democratic farmer labor party candidate
2:02for congress in minnesota's second
2:04congressional district
2:06colleen
2:07thank you very much for coming on
2:10yeah i hate to start off uh right off
2:12the bat with one minor correction oh
2:15please um but i did not testify to the
2:18911 commission
2:20uh almost no one who was part of the
2:23joint intelligence um committee inquiry
2:27did testify
2:29uh the reason for that was because they
2:30didn't want to duplicate what the jicy
2:33had already done
2:34so they used uh stuff from the joint
2:38intelligence committee or they chose not
2:41to use for instance
2:43uh the 28 pages that are in the joint
2:46intelligence committee zelico decided
2:48not to go into any of that
2:50however for the most part they were
2:53supposed to not duplicate what had
2:55already occurred
2:57and so most of the people who are
2:59witnesses uh certainly the agents for
3:02instance in minneapolis you know none of
3:04very few people i know were testified to
3:07the to the 9 11 commission per se
3:10and the reason for that was they didn't
3:11want to duplicate now i did testify to
3:14one other entity though besides what
3:17besides to the joint intelligence
3:19committee the senate judiciary committee
3:23i was also debriefed by the inspector
3:26general investigation
3:28in fact my memo led directly to that
3:32inspector general investigation
3:34about the various uh fbi lapses
3:38uh the three main ones being one the
3:41musawa case um
3:44secondly the phoenix memo and thirdly
3:46the fact that the fbi was uninformed
3:49about the the two hijackers that had
3:51come into california that the cia had
3:54known about and were tracking so those
3:56three things and it's about a 400 i i
3:59don't remember exactly the number of
4:01pages i reviewed it once and it's
4:04several it's a few hundred pages long it
4:06took a couple of years for that
4:09inspector general report to come out
4:12and it didn't come out until i want to
4:14say 2000 it finally got released in
4:172000 well it got done in 2004. it didn't
4:22actually get publicly released until
4:262006. the inspector general report
4:30that went into what how the fbi had
4:32messed up
4:34my idea
4:35and or the cia right i have to apologize
4:37there because it reminded me of an
4:39incident and i interviewed him was
4:41involving anthony schaefer of the able
4:44danger program in which he gave
4:46testimony to the 911 commission
4:48when uh bill zelkow visited him at
4:51bagram air force base in afghanistan
4:54yet they didn't even use the interview
4:56in the 911 commission
4:58so i i just want to pause it right off
5:00the bat and the other the other big one
5:02that was never used
5:04who uh i know very well is is bogdan
5:07djokovic
5:08you should try to interview him sometime
5:11he's written an entire book about this
5:13he was the f um the faa's red team
5:18leader that found all the lapses at the
5:20airports and he he was uh
5:24you know testified at length to the 911
5:27commission
5:28officially
5:29etc and they left it out completely of
5:32their final of their report
5:35and of course it's very embarrassing
5:37bogdan's uh
5:38story is extremely embarrassing to
5:40everyone and zelico left that out too
5:43yeah it just seems that this is a
5:44consistent history with the 9 11
5:46commission itself exactly um i do have a
5:48question for you though because i live
5:49in new york and this is very interesting
5:51for me um when you worked in the new
5:53york city field office regarding italian
5:55organized crime were you involved with
5:57the pizza connection case because louis
5:59free was a prosecutor i think back then
6:01right well
6:03you know the the uh the organized crime
6:06strike force at in i don't know 80
6:1187
6:14was led by louis free he was the head of
6:16all the prosecutors in that organized
6:19crime strike force so yes i knew louis
6:21free very well from that point also
6:24chertoff georgetown was the uh
6:27prosecutor on the uh gambino case excuse
6:31me he he was initially on one of the
6:34family uh rico prosecutions but then he
6:37was the head of the commission case
6:42and so my role i was on the columbo
6:44family uh prosecution
6:46and so uh we had two or three other
6:49prosecutors aaron markku bruce baird i
6:52really still remember their names
6:54um and they were the prosecutors of that
6:57family prosecute organized crime family
7:00prosecution of the
7:01now the colombo that the thing that i
7:05actually was another case agent
7:08really astute case agent that i was like
7:10a main assistant to
7:12and we uncovered the labor
7:14racketeering uh predicate
7:17that all of the families were engaged in
7:20fixing prices of of the concrete that
7:23went into superstructure so this began
7:26in the 80s at some point in the early
7:2980s they were all splitting up the four
7:32families not the bananas because they
7:33had fallen out out of power but already
7:36by that time the four families were
7:39splitting up
7:40all of the
7:42superstructure concrete work amongst
7:45about seven major
7:47companies
7:49so those companies sometimes you know
7:51they were kind of forced to by the mob
7:54and other times they liked it because
7:56they were getting guaranteed
7:58uh it was a price fixing so they were
8:01all in this big conspiracy and some of
8:04the companies for instance the gambino
8:06companies
8:07and the uh um genovese companies liked
8:10it they liked it because they were
8:12guaranteed and the other company that
8:14was part of this was uh was a concrete
8:17supplier
8:18so the concrete supplier in new york was
8:20part of this thing in fact they were the
8:22ones with i actually trans transcribed a
8:25conversation about give the numbers to
8:28and it was one of the heads of the
8:30concrete companies he was the guy fixing
8:32it right so this this very key thing
8:35that i was had a direct role in the
8:38other agent had started the whole thing
8:40they were they planted uh microphones in
8:43the car
8:44of the
8:45district council the president of the
8:48district council of laborers in new york
8:51was a made colombo capital
8:55okay so uh he was a high level and he
8:58was working of course with other
9:00families as well but he was a colombo
9:02guy his two sons were the locals
9:05presidents of the two locals right okay
9:08their last name was scopo scopo
9:11and um
9:13one of them was ralph scopo i believe
9:15ralph scopo so i listened in
9:18and actually transcribed all of these
9:21conversations
9:23of scopo with um with uh concrete
9:26companies
9:27concrete company people
9:29and they were they were from his first
9:32of all it was a social club then it was
9:34his uh in his home telephone but
9:37eventually it was the cars that they
9:39were meeting in and the cars where they
9:41met in they felt safer to talk in and so
9:44they were long you know usually about an
9:46hour long and it would you know it was
9:48like transcribing was the f word about
9:51every third word was the f word
9:53and i did this for almost two years
9:56uh so nothing you ever see on exciting
9:59television shows where you know you're
10:02chasing people and all that no it's
10:04listening in and transcribing and it was
10:06very hard i mean you practically hurt
10:09your hearing
10:10because you had to go over it a million
10:12times to perfect the conversation so
10:14that when the jury heard it it was you
10:17know the same conversation they were
10:19listening to
10:20very hard to do and especially in places
10:23with like the social club was really
10:24hard because you had everybody talking
10:26at once right and so that's what i did
10:29and that predicate if there's a show on
10:32netflix now about the commission page i
10:35don't know if you've watched it no
10:38you should watch i don't remember the
10:39name of it but it's a three-part series
10:43and of course uh giuliani is in it he's
10:46taking all the credit for things but
10:48also these commission case agents that i
10:51was what like my best friend was one of
10:53the commission case agents
10:55and so they're like some of the heroes
10:57of it and and the people who planted the
10:59bugs etc
11:01and the labor racketeering predicate it
11:05was actually the
11:07strongest part of the entire case of the
11:10commission case
11:12now the pizza connection
11:14was a drug case
11:16and that actually i knew a little bit
11:19about it too but a lot of those were
11:21first uh generation sicilians
11:24not the organized mob banana colombo
11:28genovese and whatever they are they're
11:30very different
11:31so actually a guy that lived in new
11:34jersey just around the block for me was
11:37one of the main
11:38uh first targets of the pizza connection
11:41and then he later became a cooperating
11:43witness and he lived right i found out
11:44the guy lived right around the corner
11:46from new jersey kind of scary stuff you
11:48know
11:49his his kids went to the same allen
11:52elementary school
11:54and i figured out oh my god why you know
11:56he knows and his wife said oh you're in
11:58the fbi so i mean it was like i was like
12:01i thought i should be able to get a
12:03transfer out of that because sure
12:05right around the corner so you you jump
12:07straight from the fire from the new york
12:09uh
12:11terrorist organized crown force and
12:13you're in minneapolis now and
12:15during this time
12:17uh there was pertinent data showing
12:19radical fundamentalists
12:20um
12:23throughout the 1990s but it wasn't
12:25really a big
12:27issue within say
12:30the global intelligence community the
12:32fbi new york division actually was
12:34probably one of the better divisions and
12:36minneapolis and phoenix
12:39however previous reports given to the
12:41fbi al qaeda linked supporters training
12:44at flight schools which was outlined in
12:45ken williams phoenix memo
12:48but it was also outlined years before
12:50that in a philippines police report
12:52concerning the interrogation of abdul
12:54hakim raj in the 1995 jacob plot about
12:58sleeper cells inside the united states
12:59training at flight schools
13:01now the previous director
13:03uh lewis free
13:05and then later mueller
13:07didn't act on this intelligence and why
13:10do you think that
13:12you know in hindsight i never knew how
13:15bad louis free was
13:17when i of course when i worked in new
13:19york and later on when he was director
13:22i you know
13:23i knew he had some faults about certain
13:26things but i never knew how bad he was
13:29in terms of being such a
13:31a neocon outlook and if you back up to
13:35the 1990s what what we kind of learned
13:38since that time is free directly
13:42seemed to have squelched
13:44a bombing in
13:46saudi arabia called the kobar towers
13:49so that hope i had a i had uh some
13:52knowledge of the kobar towers i think it
13:54was 96 or 97 that that occurred 96
13:5896 the reason is
14:00one of the 20
14:0321 young
14:05air force man men who died
14:08young guy was from minnesota
14:11and i ended up being the victim witness
14:15liaison with his parents and young wife
14:18i think he was only 21 years old and so
14:21louis free
14:23immediately became a micro manager of
14:26that hobart towers
14:28and now
14:29what i didn't and i kind of should have
14:31i maybe should have wrecked i knew he
14:33was a micromanager because he would send
14:35out teletypes that i had to personally
14:38convey to the family so i would have to
14:41drive up to this house where this uh the
14:43victims
14:44the the whatever and then as actually
14:47also one other time we actually all flew
14:50to quantico the parents and the young
14:52wife and myself i was like i accompanied
14:55them for a weekend were free debriefed
14:58uh he would would uh you know his his
15:01his uh
15:03his pretense was that he was leveling
15:05with the families to the point where
15:07they even had a whole weekend with
15:10high level figures janet reno louis free
15:13the department of the secretary of
15:16defense actually
15:17uh what was who was it now i forget his
15:20name they all made appearances at this
15:22thing
15:23and so the families anyways i found out
15:26later that what i was conveying to the
15:29families from free actually all turn out
15:31to be lives if you read gareth porter
15:34and there's a lot of evidence now that
15:37the cobart towers was done by al-qaeda
15:40uh you know look saudi arabia had no
15:44saudi arabia had no uh
15:48willingness to own up to the fact that
15:50al-qaeda had done bombings inside saudi
15:53arabia and that had killed americans
15:56so they were uh they were
15:58uh covering this all up and in fact it
16:01looks like they they uh executed people
16:04that would have been that would have
16:06been knowledgeable about who really did
16:08it and on free's last day in office
16:12last day in office he was able uh by
16:14that time
16:16a change of uh administrations he was
16:19able to push through these indictments
16:21of
16:22shiite
16:23uh iran they claimed they claimed iran
16:26connected shiites that who that saudi
16:30arabia told free to blame
16:33essentially this was the saudi people
16:36telling free
16:37this is who you blame and and and in
16:40fact the prior administration said there
16:42was
16:43very little evidence for this they would
16:44not do it but then the change of
16:47administrations
16:48he was able to push it through on his
16:50very last day and then proudly crowed to
16:53the families how he had solved the case
16:56and this was not the first time free had
16:59uh micromanaged things and
17:02screwed it up royally he did the same
17:05thing in the olympic bombing he screwed
17:07it up royally by micromanaging
17:10i knew little bits of how this was but
17:13only in hindsight did i realize what a
17:15freaking neocon he was and also because
17:18in in hindsight it became so obvious
17:21when he became a lobbyist along with all
17:24of the other
17:25neocon people in government for the mech
17:28mujahideen polk that which actually was
17:31on the terrorist list he was actually a
17:32lobbyist for a terrorist group the mec
17:35and was taking you know thousands of
17:38dollars
17:39and you know you see those things it
17:40takes a little while to put it all
17:42together and at the time i'm really
17:45really sorry that i conveyed all of
17:48these misinformation and lies to the
17:50victim's family and just because i was
17:53the go-between the victim witness
17:55coordinator
17:56i was telling them that stuff that saudi
17:58arabia want you know wanted to put out
18:01but so kobar towers there he goes cobart
18:05towers should have been a wake up and
18:06the other thing were the embassy
18:08bombings too
18:09and i think if you talk to people like
18:11ali soufan
18:13even the coal bombing uh late the very
18:16last one of course right before 9 11. uh
18:19you you find out that the fbi was being
18:23either duked
18:24very much duped by saudi arabia uh and
18:28some of the agents like sufan and his
18:32bosses in
18:33new york
18:34they were the only squad that actually
18:36was more in tune with the fact that al
18:39qaeda
18:40and that bin laden had turned against us
18:42even though he was our he was our man in
18:46afghanistan along with some of the other
18:48mujahideen and we were
18:51we were on that side in order for these
18:53strategic reasons of brzezinski fighting
18:56the soviet union so uh along with the
18:59chechi and terrorist leader
19:01but the
19:03but so it was slow
19:06to figure out
19:07that your your
19:09your assets and your informants now turn
19:12against you
19:14and i think some of that was just you
19:16know that way but also because louis
19:19free was really solidly sold out to that
19:22whole neocon ideology and and the notion
19:25of he's he's you know part and parcel of
19:28all of this so he's always going to be
19:31slow to wake up about it right you hit
19:33on you hit on a consistent theme i've
19:35been seeing throughout the last 25 years
19:39is that um when there whenever there's a
19:41terrorist attack
19:42and
19:43you know any general historian would
19:45know a researcher would know that most
19:47of these are all wahhabi oriented
19:50yet the primary suspect always seems to
19:53be either somewhat from the shiite
19:55community to hezbollah
19:57um
19:58party of god and always a blame toward
20:01either
20:02iran
20:03syria libya yet
20:05all of these terrorist incidents have a
20:08direct connection to the
20:10wahhabi-oriented salafi groups of
20:12al-qaeda and affiliates thereof like abu
20:15sayyaf of boko haram and it's
20:18unfortunate that uh
20:20director louise free
20:23you know when you speak about the cobart
20:24towers he actually had met with the um
20:28uh king fraud and also the defense
20:30minister prince sultan bin abdulaziz
20:34and basically agreed with them in
20:36getting rid of the suspects before they
20:38could even talk
20:39and then it was the saudi gid who
20:41basically dissuaded the residents not to
20:44speak with the fbi louis free shuts down
20:46the case and there's no more connection
20:48and he gets to take all the credit about
20:51closing the case
20:52uh but the case was never closed as you
20:55outlined
20:57that that one is the most egregious uh
21:00incident that i'm aware of and yeah
21:02maybe right at the start when this
21:04happens in 96 you can't fault anybody
21:07for not knowing but as time goes on
21:10uh you know
21:11as as as why you know by the time he
21:14retires uh in 19 uh right before 9 11
21:18two months before 9 11 june of 2000
21:22of 2001 is when free
21:25retired and uh by that time
21:28you know he and he's putting out just
21:30the opposite to the families telling
21:33them how you know saudi arabia is so
21:35cooperative and all the rest i mean it's
21:37absolutely opposite of what we you later
21:39learn about the whole situation can you
21:42you know
21:42let's i want to revisit it he later lies
21:45about mack i mean so i find you find out
21:48that
21:49you know he wasn't only just incompetent
21:52uh and maybe some of it is just pure
21:55incompetence too because he's the boss
21:57and he's got very big head like all the
22:00people when they rise up that level
22:03um but you also find out that you know
22:06he
22:07uh is
22:08is uh
22:10what like outright not not telling the
22:12truth about things
22:14to to just revisit um 1993 world trade
22:17center bombing
22:19it seemed that new york again
22:21seemed to hit on a notion that it was
22:23more than just a ragtag bunch of
22:25individuals but there was certain a
22:27bigger connection and very few agents
22:30were in on it one of them was frank
22:31pellegrino and he is the only person at
22:34the time who made a connection that this
22:36maybe even a bigger connection he
22:38started chasing um khalid sheikh
22:41mohammed
22:42um and he chased him even to qatar and
22:45there was a big argument between the cia
22:47and the fbi about trying to arrest him
22:50and he basically escapes the country
22:52because the prime minister qatar
22:54not the prime minister
22:56the uh president i forgot his name but
22:58he basically warns uh clea chicago he
23:00flees
23:01but it just so seemed that the fbi was
23:03willing to shut down any type of notion
23:06that there was even a bigger problem
23:08regarding arab fundamentalists in the
23:10early 90s was that also the case in
23:12minnesota or did they did they get uh
23:15were they um
23:17aware that there might have been a
23:19bigger or they just didn't know either
23:21well the minnesota agents and again i
23:24don't know how much background they had
23:27of bojinka plot and some of these other
23:30things uh the 1993 uh
23:35ramsay youssef and all the rest i'm not
23:37quite sure but i do know that they were
23:40up they didn't know they were pretty
23:43intelligent about
23:45uh the background
23:47maybe not quite as intelligent as ali
23:49soufan and others but and pellegrino or
23:52whatever but they were they were up on
23:53it minnesota had just uh started its
23:56joint terrorism task force a couple of
23:59months before
24:00it had only been up and running for a
24:02couple of months before musawi
24:05the phone call comes in from the flight
24:07schools that there's a very suspicious
24:09student the most suspicious we've ever
24:11seen
24:12two calls come in simultaneously from
24:14whistleblower
24:16instructors
24:18and that joint intel and terrorism task
24:20force had only been in
24:22in uh
24:23created a couple of months before
24:25the acting supervisor who was a former
24:28uh trooper was a very smart astute guy i
24:31don't know how much background he had
24:33and then the they they land on the agent
24:36who goes out and checks it harry samut
24:38who ends up testifying in the musawi
24:40trial
24:40was uh not only in aviation in the navy
24:44so he already had this background in
24:46piloting and stuff but he also he was up
24:49on intelligent stuff he was very smart
24:52about this in fact he comes into my
24:54office like two days a day or two after
24:57musawi was taken into custody and he
25:00says these are the possible statutes
25:03that i'm you know we're going to seek
25:04this emergency fisa search and the the
25:08two statutes he had found one was
25:10interference in a in a uh
25:13aviation or something i forget the name
25:15of it but it's in a federally federal
25:17aviation whatever interference sabotage
25:21so i mean those are what musali ends up
25:23charged with the same two
25:25statutes out of 300 some statutes on the
25:29books or more that he whatever he comes
25:32in two days later and he points to so
25:34it's he was very astute and he uh knew
25:38pretty quickly that the the tie-in was
25:41to bin laden and whatever he he knew
25:43that that was the case of course he
25:45knows even more after france comes back
25:48within days and says uh musawi is
25:51recruiting for
25:52abu qatab who is uh you know who is this
25:55chechen terrorist leader now here's the
25:58missing thing and if you haven't checked
26:00it out uh read the newsweek i think it's
26:03newsweek article by philip chenen
26:07s-h-e-n-o-n
26:09former new york times called the narrow
26:12miss chants
26:13if you have not read that one and that
26:17sheenan did not learn
26:19about this memo in april of 2001
26:23entitled bin laden and catawb are
26:26entwined and going to attack
26:29april of 2001.
26:31you know i don't know our agents didn't
26:33know about that memo obviously
26:36they were trying to say well because
26:38he's recruiting for catawb
26:41does not mean he's connected to al qaeda
26:44you know the chechen terrorist group is
26:47a separate group right now that memo
26:51says they're entwined
26:53and in fact they had been both fighting
26:56uh armed by char in charlie wilson's war
26:59armed and funded by the united states to
27:01fight in afghanistan against the soviet
27:04union and i don't know what they what
27:07what specific actions they were entwined
27:09with but this this memo really makes all
27:12the difference in the world because this
27:14argument that uh that argument that um
27:19that uh
27:21that that comes about
27:23is that the chechen terrorist group is
27:27not a group that the fisa court would
27:29accept well why why aren't they well
27:32they because they were our terrorists i
27:34mean you know this is part of the
27:36problem and this these are some of the
27:38things that are unsaid
27:39when an informant goes south
27:42or a or a proxy terrorist group goes
27:46south the the fbi is always going to be
27:50loath to turn on a dime and say now
27:53they're the you know whatever it takes
27:55you know look at whitey bolder case for
27:58and many many others
28:00okay so when that happens they're not
28:02going to be they're not going to turn on
28:04a dime and say oh oh our informant is
28:07the murderer
28:09our proxy group that we funded is now
28:13the terrorist group that's not going to
28:15happen at least it's not going to happen
28:17quickly
28:18and so i think that the fact that uh
28:21france comes back and has direct proof
28:23that musawi was recruiting for abu katab
28:28and then the connection to bin laden of
28:30course in my memo i write uh i didn't
28:34know i didn't know about the memo in
28:36april of 2001 when i wrote my memo in
28:402002 i didn't know about that or i could
28:43have even been a lot stronger i didn't
28:45know and i again i don't think our i
28:47know our agents didn't know about it now
28:49the question is who did know about it
28:52who did know about that april 2001
28:55uh
28:56memo
28:57well the seven or eight assistant
28:59directors
29:01uh who it came it was a memo from louis
29:04free and the reason this memo became
29:06public was because in the musawi trial
29:09it's an exhibit
29:11that april 2001 memo is an actual
29:14exhibit in the trial
29:16and uh and again sheenan didn't even
29:19notice it until much later
29:21and so read his article first read
29:23philip sheenans because when sheenan
29:25goes back to for instance the people at
29:28headquarters
29:29who had were fighting with our agents no
29:32we can't do an emergency search we can't
29:34take this to the fisa court it's too
29:37weak the chechen group is not officially
29:41a fisa terrorist group uh you have no
29:45real evidence that it's connected to bin
29:47laden blah blah blah all these are and
29:49then they watered down some of the
29:52of the um emergency affidavit the
29:55emergency declaration they watered down
29:57some of the wording in it all these
29:59things that they did then to like i said
30:01to sort it
30:03um but
30:04you know i
30:06i would have uh it would be my educated
30:09guess that neither of those two
30:12uh supervisor or the supervisor's boss
30:15the unit chief or section chief whatever
30:17he was um i i doubt they actually knew
30:21about the april 2001 memo it's possible
30:24they knew about it they could have
30:26searched and maybe found it i don't know
30:28if they knew about it or not but the
30:30name
30:31on the memo one of the assistant
30:33directors was michael rollins r-o-l and
30:37he actually
30:39he didn't
30:40he acted like he didn't know about the
30:42musawa case for months and months he
30:44finally got trapped
30:47in in a senate uh for a a congressional
30:50hearing of some sort
30:52um trying to think of when this was
30:55like the fall of 2001 maybe
30:58and rollins is is almost got caught in
31:02perjury he almost got caught lying to
31:04congress
31:05but somebody in congress knew that
31:08uh that he some he would they they knew
31:11somehow that rollins knew about the
31:13musawa gates and there's a there's a
31:15news article about it i could never find
31:18in a million years again but there's a
31:20news article in a mainstream news that
31:22says he was finally forced to admit that
31:25he had been briefed about the musawa
31:27case this this is after a while
31:31that he pretends he doesn't know about
31:33it
31:33now he
31:35the his briefing was apparently quite
31:38brief it was an oral briefing in the
31:40hallway type thing
31:42and so there's no like official
31:44documentation that he was briefed
31:46but uh and he makes of course he tries
31:49to make light of it you know something
31:51in minnesota of course i didn't take it
31:53seriously it was nothing blah blah blah
31:56but rollins
31:57was on the other memo april of 2001
32:02where this whole thing falls apart that
32:05oh you know
32:06uh it's not a it's not a group the
32:09chechens are not terrorists all of this
32:11falls apart when he also was on the now
32:15all of them claim they don't remember
32:17the memo
32:19and this is why after 9 11
32:22uh you know what is so
32:24what is so compelling here is that you
32:27get all of this shock doctrine moment
32:30that now that we've been attacked we
32:32know that we have to change everything
32:35everything changes
32:37we have to start mass surveillance
32:39within a couple of weeks uh hayden turns
32:42on the buttons that begin monitoring you
32:44know americans
32:46uh all of those secret memos written by
32:49john you basically say
32:51now we can do all the illegal things
32:54that we never could before under
32:56emergency
32:57the post-9 11 emergency including
33:00torture but all of these things were
33:02done it was it wasn't just torture it
33:03was a whole bunch of things that john
33:05you wrote secret memos right
33:08right after 9 11. within days
33:10essentially almost a martial law theory
33:13that it's an emergency and now martial
33:16laws is in place right so
33:18okay
33:19so one of so they go to this drastic
33:23level of saying that we can do all
33:25illegal things now under a form of
33:28martial law
33:29and yet the one thing
33:32that uh that turns out to be the biggest
33:35problem
33:36is that officials and i don't know of
33:39any official who will say yes i read the
33:42memo
33:43and i can't tell you why either i can't
33:46tell you why i remember reading the memo
33:48i can't tell you why that i did these
33:50things
33:51every single one of them testifies in
33:54official inquiries
33:56that they don't
33:57remember the memos
33:59and yet to this day 20 years later i
34:03don't think there's ever been any kind
34:06of
34:07very minor bureaucratic fix
34:10that they can at least have a way to
34:12find out
34:14if you read the memo
34:16even under j edgar hoover
34:19under danger hoover and clyde tolson you
34:22had clyde tolson had this ct and you had
34:25to check off this was all paper but uh
34:29when you read something or sent
34:31something you had to do a little check
34:34off in your initials your initials by
34:36the checkoff it's a very rudimentary
34:39form of a tracking mechanism so that
34:42later on you can't go and say i don't
34:45remember that at all
34:47but that
34:48like i said after 9 11 it turns out
34:51nobody remembers anything
34:54and and there's never been a fix of that
34:57okay if nobody remembers at the very
34:59least what you've got to do is get some
35:02kind of tracking thing in there so that
35:04people can't whether they saw it or not
35:07that you can actually determine these
35:09things and you can't just say i don't
35:11remember
35:12you know it's a very small thing no we
35:14went to war killed millions of people
35:17tortured surveillance all these things
35:20and yet to my knowledge this this little
35:23fix that could have been a mechanism of
35:26finding out
35:28what you actually read or knew ahead of
35:31time
35:32and and i don't even ever see in fact i
35:34see it opposite
35:36all the time with in the sarnoff in the
35:39underwear bomber i see it all the time
35:42they find a memo that was written
35:44beforehand
35:46and then they say your name is on it it
35:48was to your attention
35:50and that person is in official things ah
35:53i don't remember i don't think i ever
35:54saw it i don't think i ever saw it never
35:56saw it don't remember and that still is
35:59going on right it's amazing that kind of
36:02what's the word discrepancy it's just it
36:05floors me and i say it in a lot of i say
36:08it in in many many interviews and to
36:10this day most people shrug
36:13it's like well well they're powerful of
36:15course if they don't want to remember
36:17they don't have to remember they're the
36:18powerful people and they don't have if
36:20they don't if they don't think they saw
36:22it fine fine
36:24and i'll even get that from interview
36:26reporters and everything even right off
36:28the bat amazing discrepancy and and that
36:31leads beautifully into the next question
36:33because as we see with those fbi
36:35superiors about malfeasance
36:38you're in the minneapolis chief division
36:41council in 2000 and there's another
36:43agency
36:45and cia's alex station which is a
36:47virtual station monitoring the movements
36:50and financial
36:51uh transactions of al qaeda and bin
36:53laden
36:54they come into possession that there's
36:56two al qaeda operatives inside the
36:57united states since khalid al-madari
37:00minneapolis is not notified because the
37:02fbi general was never notified about
37:05this fact until august of 2001 at the
37:07national security group the fbi was
37:10suppressed by cia leads management such
37:13as tom wilshire the deputy director of
37:16alex station and at the time the deputy
37:18chief
37:19michael shoyer
37:21to share this information and data
37:24and richard blee who took over him in
37:261999
37:28what it just seems that there is a a
37:31lack there's i don't know whether to say
37:33it's malfeasance or something more but i
37:35don't want to imply something else
37:37without evidence but
37:39what you just described with the fbi
37:42it seems that that's the same thing with
37:44the cia in regards to oh we're not
37:47sharing information but yet lie about it
37:49when they're investigated by the senate
37:51and 911 commissions in which they say
37:53yes we did share with the fbi but they
37:55never did
37:56yeah
37:56and the agent uh there were two or at
37:59least two maybe three agents
38:02who wanted to share the information and
38:05uh forget his name now rossini i think
38:07mark rossini and doug miller that's
38:09right yeah and rossini now admits
38:12that he lied to the inspector general
38:16so the inspector general when they do
38:18their like i said my memo led to that uh
38:21investigation
38:22he was told he had to lie
38:26and so there's an interview of rossini
38:28again here's the reason for this
38:31because there's priorities the
38:33priorities
38:34and of course telling the
38:37god's truth to the public is the very
38:39lowest
38:40priority but even official inquiries of
38:44congress
38:45and uh and of inspector generals are a
38:48less priority
38:50than what somebody who's ahead of for
38:53instance the cia or the nsa will tell
38:55you is national security reasons so when
38:58they tell you national security trumps
39:01the truth to congress for instance
39:04most people that are part of the system
39:07are going to follow that
39:09and rossini would be the one to ask
39:11about this right because he he is says
39:14this in an interview that he actually
39:16thought he had to lie
39:18because of national security now here's
39:21the difference is that when you have a
39:23brzezinski
39:24or these people at the top who are
39:27coming up with uh or loyfery for that
39:29matter who are coming up with their
39:31notions of national security
39:35and uh that and the fact that not
39:38telling the truth about things matters
39:40more
39:41because of foreign policy goals
39:45so they come up with their foreign
39:46policy goals and agenda
39:49they
39:50they conflate those with national
39:52security so when a brzezinski says we
39:55got to do this whatever the foreign
39:57policy goal
39:59is conflated with net you know
40:01supporting the chechen terrorists well
40:03okay
40:04well you know that's not a good thing
40:06but they always have that friend of the
40:08enemy what is it the enemy the enemy of
40:11my enemy is my friend the enemy of my
40:13enemy is my friend is always the case
40:16they use well whitey bulger is a perfect
40:18example
40:19so i like to talk about cases that are
40:21publicly known like that so when he's
40:24found out to be murdering people
40:27it's much more important to cover that
40:29up and that wasn't just a couple of
40:31rogue agents his murders were covered up
40:34for a long years and years and in fact
40:37it looks like robert mueller even
40:39probably knew about it and helps cover
40:41it up
40:42and the reason is it's a bigger goal
40:45to get information from whitey bulger on
40:48his enemies in the italian mob
40:51than allowing him to commit murders so
40:54you're you're prioritizing
40:56your goals and when it comes to foreign
40:59policy that trumps everything it
41:02certainly uh trumps domestic murders for
41:05instance you know so if there's a you
41:07know you see this all the time with
41:08these assassinations that are occurred
41:11officials were thwarted in in finding
41:15the truth about certain uh ambassadors
41:18and and heads of state etc who are
41:22assassinated
41:23if it conflicts with the united states
41:27who who certain people
41:29decide are the foreign policy goals
41:33and they conflate those foreign policy
41:35goals with national security so when you
41:38do that
41:39you feel perfectly fine like oh well
41:42it's the noble lie you have to do this
41:46uh and uh because it's more important
41:50that these goals be met and you see this
41:53all the time it gets worse and worse and
41:54worse because now eventually if you go
41:57down that road of thinking that the
41:59foreign policy goals trump everything
42:02you finally get into outright lying to
42:04the public all the time you know making
42:06up false flags and everything else it
42:09goes worse and worse and worse but
42:11certainly just to avoid the
42:13embarrassment
42:15of all of this baggage of years and
42:18years of
42:19covering up uh al-qaeda and bin laden
42:23because we were the ones who backed that
42:26whole thing to begin with under
42:27brzezinski i think that's a lot of it
42:30and and then again for for little people
42:33down the line who might blurt out
42:36actually innocently blurt out things
42:38uh they don't even know the big picture
42:41it's only the people at the top who
42:43actually have all the dots right like a
42:46rollins for instance you know the people
42:48at the top are the ones most privy to
42:50all of the dots because first of all
42:52they're more senior they've been in it
42:54longer so a first office agent hardly
42:57even you know basically kind of doesn't
42:59even know as much about it when i was
43:01the when i was conveying uh information
43:04to this kobar towers victim family i
43:07didn't know any of this of the bigger
43:09picture about saudi arabia i only knew
43:11the things i was being sent to read
43:14my my supervisor again this is a
43:17learning curve that i've had now that
43:19i'm you know 67 and out of the fbi for
43:22so long and you know as daniel ellsberg
43:25will tell you it takes a long time to
43:27kind of put this all together
43:29but you know with uh my supervisor my
43:32organized crime supervisor in new york
43:36for for just for one year i had a couple
43:38of other supervisors too but this one
43:40supervisor i had for one year head of
43:42the banana family squad was lynn de
43:46vecchio yeah and linda vecchio ended up
43:49being prosecuted for
43:51you know negligent murder
43:53because he was operating a top papo boss
43:58of the uh banana family scarpa yeah greg
44:01scarborough
44:02yep scarpa and just the same as bulger
44:06not for a year or two
44:08for like 20 years same as bulger this
44:11wasn't a little short thing he was
44:14handling a scarpa for a couple of
44:16decades and scarpo was also just like
44:19bulger murdering people and there's a
44:22whole 60 minutes where linda vecchio he
44:25gets off by the skin of his teeth
44:27because of a kind of a technicality and
44:29he has this sly smile when he's finally
44:32uh interviewed on 60 minutes
44:35you know basically saying you you folks
44:37don't know what it takes this is what it
44:39takes you have to operate murderers he
44:42doesn't say it outright but he he comes
44:45close to saying admitting
44:47and this is the same thing in the infor
44:50like i said with foreign policy pumping
44:52it's the same thing with all of the
44:54informants who go south you're operating
44:58top
44:59uh scarpa and boulder work top echelon
45:03uh informants
45:04so they're the most important bosses of
45:08these
45:09of these ricoh families they're the
45:11bosses of it
45:12and they and the fbi's operating them
45:14can you imagine the problems of
45:16operating the bosses of organized crime
45:19families and in my whole career there
45:22was almost nobody who ever said hey
45:26should we really be operating the bosses
45:29of the families the top echelon or
45:32should we just basically be trying to
45:34get info from lower level people so go
45:38back to what the only person who outed
45:41de vecchio
45:42who kind of started seeing these things
45:44like oh god de vecchio's leaking to
45:46scarpa the same way scarp is leaking to
45:48de vecchio was a first office agent with
45:51only a couple of years in
45:53so he he just naive he's naive he
45:56doesn't understand he blurts it out and
45:58i think he he ended up being destroyed
46:01uh this whistleblower on on de vecchio
46:04but that's the that's what goes on the
46:06whole new york office cal strom all
46:09these bosses the informant unit all side
46:12with de
46:13and he gets off by the skin of his teeth
46:15that happens that i always tell people
46:18boulder and scarpa they're publicly
46:21known that's why i can you can talk
46:23about them but they're the tip of the
46:25iceberg this kind of thing goes on all
46:28the time
46:30hopefully in lesser crimes than just
46:32outright murders like this but it goes
46:34on all the time and the reason for it is
46:38you find yourself on the wrong side
46:41with your goals
46:43so your goals and your agenda eventually
46:46uh end up on the wrong side
46:49and you know it takes a long time to
46:51realize no maybe uh the wahhabi proxy
46:54forces maybe we shouldn't be uh funding
46:58and arming them
47:00and you know what they didn't even learn
47:01that lesson because in syria they went
47:03right back to doing it it's never been
47:05learned that's right never been learned
47:07so french intelligence later receives
47:09word that zacharias masali is inside the
47:11united states
47:13and they sent the detailed memo to the
47:14oklahoma and minnesota field offices and
47:17by 2001 a serious file has been secured
47:20on masawi
47:22but it seemed that the cia were made
47:24aware of sally at this point
47:26um how how were they now how were they
47:29made aware of him and how long do you
47:31think they were made aware
47:32why didn't they inform him of you
47:36so going back you're saying the cia knew
47:39that musawi was in the country
47:42long before the the
47:44the calls come in from the flight squad
47:46to minneapolis
47:48see
47:49i don't know anything about that um
47:53firsthand or any any other way
47:56and from what i knew
47:58when the agents went around our fbi
48:01headquarters to the cia counterterrorism
48:04center
48:05uh from what i know nobody ever told
48:08anybody that the cia already knew about
48:11musawi i'm not aware at all that there
48:14was any
48:15that the cia people in the cia
48:17counterterrorism center he themselves
48:20knew about that
48:22or certainly shared it with our agents
48:25that would have changed is it i'm sorry
48:27to cut you off the reason why i'm saying
48:29that is because
48:30when the cia was um
48:32uh investigating uh this al qaeda
48:35meeting in kuala lumpur in january of
48:372000 it's the lights that musawa is
48:38there
48:41yeah uh you know it's possible he was
48:43you know because his his his uh
48:46his associate that eventually links him
48:49up with uh with al qaeda was this
48:51suffolk or something yeah
48:55he's the guy who organized kuala lumpur
48:56that's his business card that musawi has
48:59linked him right up with that so it's
49:01definitely possible i just don't know
49:03for sure all i know is at the time
49:06that the
49:07argument with headquarters was going on
49:09and even the calls to cia now the reason
49:12the cia counterterrorism center ends up
49:16producing this little two slide uh
49:19briefing to tenet
49:21right away
49:22you know that that's because the agents
49:24call and go around fbi headquarters and
49:27call directly to cia counterterrorism
49:30center they produce this little thing or
49:33fundamentalist learns to fly whatever
49:35and have six or seven talking bullet
49:38points in there and tenant gets briefed
49:41uh like august 23rd i think something
49:44like that august 23rd or 24th he's
49:47briefed right very quickly maybe even
49:50before that he's briefed very quickly
49:53and on the day of 9 11 he's having
49:56breakfast with his mentor in oklahoma
49:58forget the guy the senator the former
50:00senator
50:01uh that that made tenant what he was he
50:04is his career guru you know he's having
50:07breakfast with him starts forget that
50:09guy's name
50:10yeah that's going to bother me because i
50:12remember yeah i know it's oh but anyway
50:15someone runs in and says a plane has
50:18just hit the world trade center and the
50:21first thing out of tennis mouth that
50:23somebody overheard because it makes
50:26makes it into a news article david
50:28warren
50:29what his name is david bourne
50:32okay and because he overhears it it
50:35makes it into a news article tenet says
50:38maybe it's is it the guy in minnesota
50:41so that's how
50:43and and that is actually when you when
50:45you talk about the uh
50:48information silos
50:50and the fact that information can't make
50:53its way vertically because of
50:55bureaucracy and pecking order and you
50:58can't make calls
50:59uh over one level above you
51:02which i testified to the senate
51:04judiciary that has been a main problem
51:07nobody at a lower level is allowed to
51:10even make a call
51:12to someone who's more than one rung
51:15above their own level that goes back to
51:17military you know the fbi being a
51:20military thing and if you do try to do
51:23that you get into serious trouble
51:26um and i i i think it was feinstein
51:29stein at the time she asked me a
51:30question i said well there's a pecking
51:32order
51:33i once or twice in my career did it
51:36i made a call to a higher level person
51:39and you're you're scared out of your
51:41mind to do that
51:42because that is not kosher in the fbi to
51:46do that it's not kosher probably any of
51:48the agencies but the the agents who went
51:52around fbi headquarters people to go to
51:55the cia counterterrorism center they got
51:57into trouble for that
51:59you can't do that
52:01and you know if if you uh for instance
52:04in our office
52:05um
52:06not calling um okay so there's a there's
52:09another lie here
52:11the agent the agent and his supervisor
52:14are tearing their hair out by the end of
52:16august
52:17and we don't have an special agent in
52:20charge so the minneapolis offices sac
52:24had retired in early august a few days
52:27before that call comes in 10 days i
52:29think before the call comes in from the
52:31flight school
52:33our special agent in charge dolmen had
52:35we had retired
52:37to get a a revolving door job to make
52:40more money so he had he had left and so
52:43we all we had was an acting s.a.c
52:46so the agents when they're tearing their
52:48hair out his name was ray morrow they go
52:51into him and say you got to make a call
52:53you got to make a call they can't do it
52:55they can't go above
52:57who they're talking to already and their
52:59people are talking to are you know
53:01basically sorting it and so he promises
53:04he will moral promises he'll make a call
53:08uh i.e to rollins i think it would have
53:10been to rollins or some somebody like
53:12that
53:13and
53:14he tells them he made the call and
53:15there's nothing that can be done
53:17that all turns out to be a lie
53:20the deal is he was afraid to make the
53:23call how can you know people don't
53:26understand that oh the big brave fbi
53:28that you see on television shows ephraim
53:30zimbalist jr and you're shaking in your
53:33shoes to make a telephone call and
53:35that's exactly what it is because this
53:38bureaucratic militaristic hierarchy
53:42is run on the operation that you can't
53:45make calls up above run below above
53:48yourself and inherently this acting sac
53:52is already a run below who he would have
53:54had to call because that's he's he's not
53:57an sac
53:58and it goes on this level i i don't
54:01think feinstein understood maybe she did
54:03i don't think she understood me when i
54:05said there's a pecking order and you
54:06can't do this
54:08no i could have called and my my little
54:10mistake here is i should have picked up
54:12my phone and called spike bowman who was
54:15who was it two rungs ahead of me right
54:17you know i could have called the
54:20the 14
54:21the uh the assistant legal person which
54:24i didn't do either and
54:26partly because uh
54:28at the time
54:30you know first of all you have a certain
54:32amount of trust in their ability to know
54:34of all of these things
54:36and i'm trying to think of why i didn't
54:38call him directly but uh i could have
54:40called him directly uh and argued with
54:43him
54:44but but until spike bowman who is the
54:47head of it says no there's no probable
54:50cause and i don't know all the facts i
54:52don't know i thought maybe spike bowman
54:55read it right it turns out spike bowman
54:57lied too he didn't read it the senate
55:00judiciary committee uh forced him to own
55:03up and this isn't until 2002
55:07you know way later over a year later
55:10spike bowman admits he didn't read it
55:12either he didn't read the draft
55:14declaration so at the time i kind of
55:17figured he must have read it no he was
55:19just orally briefed never you know
55:22determined was it a two-minute briefing
55:24now basically the briefing could have
55:26been the guy the headquarters uh
55:28supervisor says you don't want to go
55:30with these dumb agents in minnesota
55:32right that's the briefing
55:34what do they know in minnesota that
55:36could have been the briefing we don't
55:38know what it was they think they landed
55:40on a terrorist and at the most it
55:42connects to the chechens there's no
55:43probable cause right
55:45and that could have been the
55:46briefing
55:48yeah so it all goes right back to misawa
55:51because misawi when he entered when he
55:53calls uh the uh
55:56the flight school
55:57one of the trainers there um you were
55:59referring to him earlier his name was
56:01clarence prevost and he actually is
56:04talking to misawi misawi is actually
56:06telling him yeah he's making these like
56:08very suspicious statements about wanting
56:10to fly a boeing right away even though
56:12he's never flown a pilot or trained in
56:15any type of airline and he's saying i
56:17just want to learn how to fly not land
56:19he makes all these statements
56:21so
56:22he calls the appeal so
56:24no no no
56:27no
56:28pravos does not call the fbi
56:31here's what happened
56:33prevost is talking to other flight
56:36instructors at the school
56:38and telling them basically what you just
56:41said this is like my most suspicious
56:43student he tells him them all these
56:45things and they have a little discussion
56:48and and uh they say god somebody should
56:51call the fbi about this
56:53and pravost actually apparently either
56:56was too busy or too chicken
56:59pravos does not cough
57:01it's uh two other guys um i'll remember
57:04their names here too
57:06they they don't even know and here's
57:08here when you have this kind of dynamic
57:11that two separate flight instructors who
57:14are getting the information second hand
57:17who themselves are whistleblowers
57:20because they're going against their own
57:23flight school
57:24they are all uh worried about making a
57:27call because it hurts their flight
57:29school
57:30and this is a paying customer they're
57:32not supposed to do this right
57:35and so these two guys don't even know
57:37each other is calling
57:39one called to our saint paul resident
57:41agency and one called into minneapolis
57:44they call within an hour of each other
57:46and so that alone that alone is is
57:49really telling it's very strong evidence
57:51that whatever now when it all then the
57:54agents go out free foster is the actual
57:57flight instructor of musawi he's the one
57:59who has the first hand so when the
58:01agents come to prevost that then he
58:04opens up and tells them yes all these
58:06things that you're talking what makes
58:08him suspicious
58:09so once they come to him
58:11he then tells them all these reasons
58:14they go back and put this all they work
58:15overtime for a day or two put it all
58:17into a uh an emergency fisa
58:20request and then wait for the french
58:23first french information that comes in
58:26and send it right in within within a
58:28very short time but pre here's the the
58:31end of the story as what's his name used
58:33to say the end of the story is prevost
58:36of course becomes the star witness in
58:38the musawi trial
58:40and in and
58:42maybe even more or less embellishes
58:46to a little bit
58:47uh
58:49how he was so astute and knew all of
58:52this ahead of time but he's not the one
58:54who made the call
58:56and prevost harry sammett puts prevost
59:00in for
59:01a
59:025 million dollar
59:05reward
59:07and that is huge money i've never in my
59:10life heard
59:11he was the star witness it was a
59:13terrorist case headquarters occasion
59:16prevost gets five million dollars for
59:20testifying after he testifies in the
59:22moosawi probably by the way told he was
59:26going to get it too
59:27so this is most in most witnesses
59:30cooperating witnesses know they're going
59:32to be paid afterwards which is already
59:34a problem for justice systems by the way
59:37because if you know you're going to be
59:38paid
59:40it will bias your testimony sure
59:43especially five million dollars but i
59:45don't know that for a fact i'm just
59:46surmising because i know it's the
59:48standard
59:50were there two men's name hugh sims and
59:52tim nelson
59:54yes
59:54and so nelson and sam
59:57yeah nelson and sims uh see that he gets
1:00:01five million and their irate they got
1:00:04nothing stiff
1:00:05and if if they hadn't called who knows
1:00:07what would have happened
1:00:09and so then they make a stink about it
1:00:11and fbi headquarters gives them up i
1:00:15think they actually give one of them
1:00:175 000 or 10 000 and the other guy gets a
1:00:21couple thousand
1:00:22i mean incredible right they get they
1:00:24get stiff and they they chuckle about it
1:00:27you know in a way i've had conversation
1:00:29with them they were when they when uh
1:00:32when this first came out about the
1:00:34flight school
1:00:36the uh
1:00:38jesse ventura was governor at the time
1:00:40and he wanted to give an award
1:00:43uh they wanted to give an award when
1:00:45again this was known that there were
1:00:47flight school whistleblowers who who
1:00:50started this whatever and this is after
1:00:52musa was already charged but before the
1:00:55trial but before the trial and and i was
1:00:58on the phone even with jesse ventura's
1:01:01office and and nixed it
1:01:03they were that these two guys were not
1:01:04to get any award until after the trial
1:01:07was over because it can impact the trial
1:01:10you can't give money and awards to
1:01:14people who could potentially be
1:01:15witnesses
1:01:16and so we had to tell ventura's office
1:01:19that they were not to give any
1:01:20recognition to the two flight school
1:01:23then later on the other guy who becomes
1:01:26the you know the witness becomes gets
1:01:28five million and they get nothing
1:01:30so this this is actually some news
1:01:32articles too um
1:01:34the uh star tribune reporter uh greg
1:01:38gordon wrote a couple an article about
1:01:40this whole thing and it was it's
1:01:42egregious but it happened this kind of
1:01:43stuff happens all the time but not what
1:01:46doesn't happen all the time is five
1:01:47million dollars sure uh incent award for
1:01:51a witness i have to get i have to give
1:01:53myself a convenient excuse is that
1:01:56sometimes i i noticed this myself like
1:01:59i'll mix the names up
1:02:01and say like with the example of prevost
1:02:04um making the call meanwhile was the
1:02:06other two guys i just named and it just
1:02:08seems to be like i think it's because of
1:02:10my old age i'm getting there i'm 51.
1:02:13so i just want to make that excuse
1:02:15myself to say it's all plain ignorance
1:02:18um but however uh you bring up uh when
1:02:21it comes to misawa too on august 16 2001
1:02:24it was harry samet john wiese and dave
1:02:27rapp
1:02:27they drive to the residence inn
1:02:30where misawi and um associates
1:02:33i think just whis and sammic
1:02:35i'm not sure if rap was with them really
1:02:38um yeah they they drive to the residence
1:02:41inn and he's rusali's actually with
1:02:43uh hussein al attus
1:02:46and they separate the two and they
1:02:47question them and then misawi says to i
1:02:50don't know who he says this to but uh
1:02:52artist tells somebody he says roussali
1:02:54believes that it's acceptable to kill
1:02:56civilians who are muslims and improves
1:02:58the martyrs
1:02:59and they find in the whole in the hotel
1:03:01room there's a there's a laptop
1:03:03there's a martyrdom wheel in our authors
1:03:06however there's a big question technical
1:03:08question for you they can't expect they
1:03:10can't inspect these items because they
1:03:12need a pfizer warrant
1:03:14can you tell my audience what is a fisa
1:03:17one
1:03:18the after the church committee with all
1:03:21of the abuses under hoover and
1:03:23cointelpro
1:03:25where up till that point
1:03:28uh the fbi of course is
1:03:30counterintelligence and criminal
1:03:33um so the fourth amendment um which
1:03:35protects people's rights in a criminal
1:03:38case does not protect your rights in an
1:03:41intelligence
1:03:42matter
1:03:43so up until that point hoover could
1:03:46under the auspices of national security
1:03:49go around the fourth amendment
1:03:51if he said it was national security even
1:03:53domestic extremism like um
1:03:57like martin luther king
1:03:59um he didn't need to really have very
1:04:02much evidence for those types of things
1:04:05you know they might write up a little
1:04:06thing but they didn't have to have they
1:04:08didn't have any formal mechanism hoover
1:04:10could do all of that and it really
1:04:12wasn't
1:04:13you know you can say was it illegal then
1:04:15but the courts had not recognized this
1:04:17as being illegal really
1:04:19there were court cases supreme court
1:04:22cases that had started to make this um
1:04:25legal doctrine about expectation of
1:04:27privacy
1:04:28that might have you could say oh well it
1:04:30was already illegal people have that
1:04:32debate kicking her egg you know but
1:04:34bottom line is who forget it after the
1:04:36after these things were came out in the
1:04:39church committee they had a compromise
1:04:41and in 78 they passed the fisa law
1:04:45because they said well they can't make
1:04:46it as hard as having to have probable
1:04:50cause of a crime
1:04:51so you have to have a slightly different
1:04:53probable cause
1:04:55and that will allow you to go to a
1:04:57secret court so it will never come out
1:05:01publicly
1:05:02it will all remain secret forever
1:05:05and uh so this fisa compromise went into
1:05:08place in 78. there was a woman at the
1:05:12department of justice mary lawton god i
1:05:15remember some names
1:05:17mary lawton who was the head of oipr
1:05:22which handled fisa warrants
1:05:26and so
1:05:27when a lot of cases are combinations the
1:05:31musali case is a perfect example
1:05:34is it a crime to sabotage a federal
1:05:37aircraft
1:05:39is it also could be an intelligence
1:05:41matter if you're recruiting for the
1:05:43chechens etc well it's both and actually
1:05:47a lot of them are both
1:05:49so they caught they came up with this
1:05:50doctrine oh by the way mary lawton uh
1:05:54comes up with a system in her head
1:05:56of trying to keep the fourth amendment
1:05:59from being abused
1:06:01so you're trying to keep the fbi
1:06:04from having an easy way like hoover
1:06:08an easy way around the fourth amendment
1:06:11protection of people's expectation of
1:06:14privacy that you have to have probable
1:06:16cause under the fourth amendment
1:06:18your so she is coming up with a way to
1:06:21do that protect people's rights the
1:06:23constitutional rights and still
1:06:27uh effectively have a level of
1:06:29information and even sometimes sharing
1:06:32that information
1:06:33now mary lawton does this for years and
1:06:36years but she
1:06:38and she was still relatively young i
1:06:40think she was in her 50s she ends up
1:06:42having a back surgery and dies
1:06:45unexpectedly young
1:06:47and when she died in the early 90s
1:06:50around 92 or so she dies
1:06:53none of her successors
1:06:56can figure out what this system of what
1:07:00came to be known as the wall
1:07:03a wall was to separate intelligence so
1:07:07that the fbi didn't abuse the
1:07:08constitution
1:07:10and and and was still able to do its job
1:07:13or whatever
1:07:14so
1:07:15jamie gorlick writes a memo
1:07:17uh her successor writes a memo there end
1:07:20up to be all these legal memos written
1:07:23that are all mutually contradictory
1:07:27and you know an agent trying to do this
1:07:30job afterwards i would go to legal
1:07:32counsel
1:07:34uh conferences and especially the new
1:07:36york office especially the new york fbi
1:07:39office was running into all kinds of
1:07:41problems because that that guy my
1:07:44counterpart in new york or counterparts
1:07:46would raise their hands and they would
1:07:48say you say in this memo to do it this
1:07:50way and you say in this memo that we
1:07:53have to share criminal information with
1:07:55doj
1:07:56but they were all mutually one was on
1:07:58secrecy now nobody uh wanted to this was
1:08:02like nobody wanted to touch us with a
1:08:0410-foot pole headquarters i'm talking
1:08:06about headquarters did not want to touch
1:08:08us with a 10-foot pole probably because
1:08:11there's no good answer to it
1:08:13so what we've come up with after 9 11 by
1:08:15the way has been a lot of of of uh
1:08:19violations of the fourth amendment
1:08:22okay so there's been now it went from
1:08:25being afraid
1:08:27afraid to share
1:08:28uh information that came up in an
1:08:30intelligence case with a criminal
1:08:32investigation beforehand
1:08:35now it went the opposite way now there's
1:08:37no wall at all and so now you do have
1:08:40the
1:08:41abuses and potential abuses of the
1:08:43fourth amendment it was just what and
1:08:45maybe that's why the smarter people at
1:08:47headquarters again after this death of
1:08:49mary lawton she was doing fine by all
1:08:52those years from 78 to 92 it was not an
1:08:56issue or a problem after she died they
1:08:58didn't know what the heck to do they
1:09:00wrote all these contradictory memos
1:09:02mutually contradictory
1:09:04nobody has told the truth about that to
1:09:06this i mean maybe somebody has but i
1:09:08don't think so because you know what
1:09:10that makes us look like mud too it means
1:09:13that for for for
1:09:1510 years
1:09:16uh people either didn't understand or
1:09:19like a jamie gorlick or they they did
1:09:22their best but they didn't want to touch
1:09:24it with a 10-foot pole by the by the way
1:09:26so um so you you said what is a fisa
1:09:30well the problem with this is that they
1:09:33were so afraid
1:09:36they came up with all of these
1:09:38quote-unquote procedures
1:09:40not to violate the law
1:09:43before 9 11
1:09:45and one of these was that you had to do
1:09:48all this checking to ensure that there
1:09:51was no criminal investigation already
1:09:54opened and that you were seeing they
1:09:55were just going fisa
1:09:58route because it was easier and it was a
1:10:01way around
1:10:02and they'd say it didn't pass the smell
1:10:04test
1:10:06one supervisor at headquarters prior to
1:10:099 11 uh last name was resnick there are
1:10:12articles about this got into trouble
1:10:15with the fisa court
1:10:17he got reamed out told never appear
1:10:19before us ever again
1:10:21because you are violating the fourth
1:10:24amendment by not doing this these
1:10:26procedures and this checking
1:10:28and that actually has an impact then on
1:10:30all of his successors
1:10:32on 911
1:10:33because they know that their predecessor
1:10:37got into huge trouble with the fisa
1:10:39court
1:10:40and and that's part of it so this
1:10:42emergen fisa fisa usually would take at
1:10:45least a month or two if it's an ordinary
1:10:48fisa they would have to really dot the
1:10:51eyes cross the t's
1:10:53um there was a there's a debate about
1:10:55whether the fisa court merely rubber
1:10:57stamped everything brought to it because
1:11:00they had only turned down one or
1:11:02something before 9 11. they had never
1:11:04hardly ever turned him down
1:11:06but then the free free louis free side
1:11:09would say that's because they're so
1:11:12perfectly done
1:11:13we ins and doj would say this as well
1:11:16they're all so perfect eyes dotted t's
1:11:18crossed that there's never been a
1:11:20problem with getting them past the fisa
1:11:23court that's their argument the other
1:11:25argument is that the fisa judges don't
1:11:27know
1:11:28exactly the facts of anything you see
1:11:30this with the carter page
1:11:32the
1:11:33the judges don't have any way of knowing
1:11:34the truth of these allegations that are
1:11:37in a fisa declaration and they just
1:11:39rubber stamp so there's two different
1:11:40thoughts on this
1:11:42and i think it's probably both i think
1:11:45before 9 11
1:11:47that actually they were done very the
1:11:49ordinary ones were done super super well
1:11:52they took a couple of three months now
1:11:54the agents
1:11:55were so worried they didn't think they
1:11:58had a couple three months so that's
1:12:00that's why they sent it in as an
1:12:02emergency to be done right away they
1:12:04tried to make it urgent and almost no i
1:12:08don't know the numbers of emergency
1:12:10fisa's
1:12:12uh
1:12:12warrants that were approved it was very
1:12:16small
1:12:17so uh playing devil's advocate on behalf
1:12:20of fbi headquarters they would have had
1:12:23to go out on the limb to say this is an
1:12:26emergency fisa because i don't think
1:12:28there were very many even though our
1:12:30agents knew it was an emergency right
1:12:33and a lot of reasons
1:12:34but there was hardly any and then you
1:12:36couple it with the problem that resnick
1:12:38had been
1:12:39by the way that was that was the former
1:12:42head of the fisa court royce lamberth
1:12:44he's another piece of work he flip-flops
1:12:47all the time you know he's he's
1:12:49partially to blame for this uh also
1:12:51because he's the one and this resnick
1:12:54thing was all bogus bs [ __ ] they should
1:12:57never have
1:12:58you know those procedures were
1:13:00all kind of stupid and whatever
1:13:03uh but anyway royce lambert you know
1:13:06bears some blame and then he goes
1:13:08completely opposite the other way
1:13:09afterwards too sure now there's a huge
1:13:12now this is a big question here because
1:13:14i think this is where the dividing line
1:13:16came in
1:13:17between the agents and the supervisors
1:13:18of minnesota was that
1:13:20agent salmon posits that both musawi and
1:13:22al hatas were conspiring to violate
1:13:25title 18 of the u.s statutes relating to
1:13:28terrorism destruction of u.s facilities
1:13:30now the memo is sent to the radical
1:13:32fundamentalist unit uh led by mike
1:13:35mulpey and both malpy and rita flack
1:13:39then send a request
1:13:41to the national security law unit
1:13:43marian spike bowman
1:13:45however
1:13:46in the memo multi had edited the request
1:13:49in which the memo was now an immigration
1:13:51issue not a criminal issue and edited
1:13:54out was musawi's link to al qaeda in
1:13:56chechnya
1:13:58under even kitab
1:14:01two-part question
1:14:03why was the memo edited and what was
1:14:05dave frasca's role in this
1:14:08yeah i don't know
1:14:09frasco was and malt b were
1:14:12in it together totally as far as i know
1:14:14they didn't disagree about anything they
1:14:16were
1:14:16you know frasco was taking malt beside
1:14:19on all this um
1:14:21yeah they they definitely changed
1:14:23wording
1:14:24and edited things that made the agents
1:14:27very mad they watered it down they not
1:14:29only watered down the emergency fisa
1:14:32request they also watered down the
1:14:35warning to the faa that's very critical
1:14:39they also watered that down
1:14:41now samut was so concerned that he tried
1:14:46locally
1:14:47to brief the local f faa with the
1:14:50original strong warning
1:14:53that because he knew that fbi
1:14:54headquarters of course the people here
1:14:56were the same things you know they
1:14:57covered up too at the local ffa like who
1:15:00are we we are not going to do anything
1:15:03and the the biggest way to prevent a 911
1:15:05was simply if you could combine bond and
1:15:08djokovic
1:15:10information along with everything that
1:15:11was happening was to shut the
1:15:14firm the
1:15:15lock the cockpit doors as soon as you
1:15:18lock the cockpit doors it makes the
1:15:19whole plot goes you know up in smoke
1:15:22they can't get into the cockpit and when
1:15:24i i got asked i got grilled whenever the
1:15:27the debriefers by the way
1:15:29both the jitty ones and the inspector
1:15:32general ones that debriefed me
1:15:34and fbi headquarters in the heart of the
1:15:38administration and the public affairs
1:15:40that were saying the exact opposite with
1:15:42minders
1:15:43in the interview
1:15:45uh i had minders in all these interviews
1:15:48even with people that had top security
1:15:51clearances
1:15:52so all of the people on the jiffy the
1:15:54staff on the jiki i'm sorry i'm
1:15:57digressing here so bring me back but all
1:15:59of the people on the jiki had top secret
1:16:02clearance because they were former fbi
1:16:05former cia former secret service that's
1:16:07the only people they hired about 30
1:16:09staffords and they were all people that
1:16:12came out of federal agencies with top
1:16:14secret clearances
1:16:15i still had an fbi minder in my
1:16:18interview
1:16:19in case i would say something
1:16:22that that hurt the fbi and this is with
1:16:24the the formal joint intelligence
1:16:26committee same thing with the inspector
1:16:28general
1:16:29okay so you know to be brave and tell
1:16:32them what you know you can't do this
1:16:34this is why rossini uh you know
1:16:36partially you should ask him directly
1:16:38but you know why he lies because he
1:16:40knows that people will know exactly what
1:16:42he tells even though it has nothing to
1:16:45do with with uh
1:16:46okay so i got off base here on uh
1:16:51yeah they ended they edited the
1:16:52information regarding was always linked
1:16:54to indian qatar
1:16:56right
1:16:57so
1:16:58so uh
1:17:00shutting the cockpit doors is the number
1:17:02oh so when i was in these things when
1:17:05they get to the end of you know i would
1:17:07say go through the story what i knew and
1:17:09stuff uh they would say
1:17:11but colleen
1:17:13there was no way to have prevented 9 11.
1:17:17how i am paraphrasing
1:17:20because they wouldn't say it precisely
1:17:22in this leading of a way
1:17:24but this is what they were saying to me
1:17:27and this came up every time and it would
1:17:29be towards the end
1:17:31they would say but you know
1:17:34how would you
1:17:36have
1:17:37how would you have prevented 911
1:17:41it you know
1:17:43how in the heck could this have been
1:17:44prevented and so then i would have to
1:17:46say well yeah yeah it does take a while
1:17:50once the search is off once the search
1:17:52occurs to put it with malaysia and kuala
1:17:55lumpur and stuff to get the fingerprint
1:17:58of ramsey been all cheap yes that takes
1:18:00a while
1:18:02but you never know if things could have
1:18:03been speeded up it turns out there are
1:18:06theories of how it could have been sped
1:18:08up greg gordon wrote a whole article
1:18:10about how it could have been sped up etc
1:18:12so i'd say well who knows yes i
1:18:14understand that this the actual search
1:18:17it doesn't really link up with ramsey
1:18:20ben elshiev for
1:18:22after 9 11. so even if you would have
1:18:24gotten the authority on august 24th the
1:18:27time just runs out
1:18:29okay so then but i said but what if
1:18:32somebody then put two into with the
1:18:34phoenix memo
1:18:35and i said the final thing is why
1:18:38would they not have with all of this
1:18:40that's known just tell the faa
1:18:43the phoenix memo knowledge that musa was
1:18:46in flight school tell the faa in
1:18:49stronger words to shut the doors from
1:18:51the cockpit
1:18:52and then they kind of looked at me
1:18:55so this is this this would be what i'd
1:18:57go through and by the way i said if you
1:18:59would have learned of the phoenix memo
1:19:01that you know if our agents would have
1:19:02known about it that would have changed
1:19:04everything alone
1:19:06but all of these information
1:19:08silos where nobody knows and again
1:19:10there's the phoenix memo there's the
1:19:12hijackers in california and nobody in
1:19:15the memos that nobody claims they ever
1:19:17read afterwards when you put it all
1:19:20together there's there's plenty for
1:19:22people to at least have and nobody would
1:19:25have watered down that faa warning to
1:19:27them to shut the cockpit for us etc and
1:19:30then yeah they kind of like oh huh huh
1:19:33and they'd write something down in their
1:19:34notes but the reluctance
1:19:38to take any responsibility for something
1:19:41as horrible
1:19:43as killing 3 000 people
1:19:46like this is is
1:19:48is just a natural human nature and
1:19:50everybody who's part of an organization
1:19:53is not going to want to own up
1:19:55it's just like the catholic priesthood
1:19:57it took 20 30 30 years for anybody in
1:20:00that hierarchy to ever admit oh my god
1:20:04we had some bad priests that were
1:20:05abusing children
1:20:07the first whistleblower was 1985
1:20:11on the catholic priesthood all covered
1:20:14up for a year and most of the people who
1:20:16covered it up were not bad themselves
1:20:18but they you can't own up to bad things
1:20:22you just can't that's part of uh i know
1:20:26i would say this to liberal i a lot of
1:20:29liberals will say oh i would have i
1:20:31would have not a person i have ever met
1:20:35in my life i don't care how saintly or
1:20:38good they are whatever
1:20:41ever like that that first office agent
1:20:44who said oh my supervisor is operating a
1:20:46murderer you know what it is one in a
1:20:49million person and half the time most of
1:20:53the whistleblowers i know
1:20:55it's naivety
1:20:57like a thomas drake uh whatever it's
1:20:59naivety that you think or or even my
1:21:03cover my time person cover with sharon
1:21:06watkins cynthia cooper no one would do
1:21:09this if they knew what's gonna result
1:21:12for them they are naive enough to
1:21:15believe oh the system is still good
1:21:17enough if i get the truth out we i
1:21:20thought the same thing i never thought i
1:21:22would be fired they were talking about
1:21:24firing me a day after my first memo
1:21:27in in headquarters and i went whoa
1:21:30i was tell i was talking to top secret
1:21:33my memo went to feinstein and shelby who
1:21:36are top secret how the heck could i be
1:21:38fired for you know leaking and stuff i
1:21:41can't be i could not understand that
1:21:44because i was too naive but you know
1:21:46what that's our system is really and you
1:21:49know what as bad as it was 2001 it's far
1:21:52far worse now far far worse
1:21:58911 happens and you become one of the
1:22:00very first people to speak out against
1:22:04malfeasance in the highest levels you
1:22:06ended up writing a paper to fbi director
1:22:08robert mueller a bold move
1:22:10documenting how personnel mess handled
1:22:13information regarding to 911
1:22:16um and of course to zacharias masali
1:22:18what did you write what tell us what you
1:22:20wrote to him
1:22:21and and by the way i didn't even know
1:22:22some of the worst parts of it i didn't
1:22:25know about i didn't know everything
1:22:27about the hijackers that the cia knew
1:22:29about the kuala lumpur i did not know
1:22:31about these early memos written months
1:22:33before that the chechen terrorist group
1:22:36was
1:22:37was aligned with bin laden there was a
1:22:39lot i didn't even know i just knew that
1:22:41i knew this part about the that our
1:22:44headquarters was lying about the fact
1:22:46that there was no probable cause and you
1:22:49know they weren't even owning up to the
1:22:51problems of the wall at the time
1:22:53they weren't it was all completely
1:22:56what happens is the cover-up really went
1:22:59too far
1:23:01and so even somebody at the lower level
1:23:03could see that oh this isn't true and at
1:23:05mueller who had only been fbi director
1:23:08for one week before 9 11 he went in
1:23:11front of the cameras for a solid month
1:23:14or two months and said we didn't know
1:23:17any information that could have
1:23:18prevented 911. well that actually went
1:23:21way too far right you know and i i
1:23:23called up again naive naive at the time
1:23:26the first time he went before the
1:23:28cameras publicly after 9 11 and said
1:23:30that i called again at that point i'm
1:23:33making calls i'm not even worried about
1:23:36uh the pecking order i was making calls
1:23:38in into his office and saying please
1:23:41warn him not to say that anymore there's
1:23:44there's all kinds of stuff there's i
1:23:45don't know if i knew about the phoenix
1:23:46memo i said here we have a terrorist
1:23:49every time i talk to somebody after 9 11
1:23:52nobody knew about a terrorist suspect
1:23:54who was under arrest in august of 2001.
1:23:57we had to explain this over and over and
1:24:00out and there was a solid cover-up
1:24:02solid cover-up
1:24:04uh something that hasn't really been
1:24:07publicly known
1:24:08is that headquarters organized a
1:24:12uh what i
1:24:13would best characterized as
1:24:16this is our story and we're sticking to
1:24:19it meeting after 9 11. it was on the fbi
1:24:24uh headquarters meeting called in the
1:24:26minneapolis office on halloween of 2001.
1:24:30and initially they were going to have so
1:24:32sam i don't know who his supervisor i'm
1:24:34not sure who went to it two or three
1:24:36agents went to it his acting supervisor
1:24:38i think i'm not sure they all they went
1:24:40to this meeting where it basically was
1:24:43headquarters trying to tell the
1:24:45minneapolis office to shut up
1:24:47and uh
1:24:49before this
1:24:50because this wasn't known at all and and
1:24:53our top levels
1:24:55were lying their heads off including
1:24:57mueller
1:24:59because mueller by that time he knew he
1:25:01knew what was known
1:25:02um
1:25:04and mueller has a history of lying about
1:25:05he's not any golden guy that you put up
1:25:08like the russia gate on the pedestal he
1:25:10maybe not as quite as bad as free but he
1:25:12was a he lied to
1:25:15um
1:25:16anyway uh
1:25:18they had this meeting and i called it
1:25:20this is our story and we're sticking to
1:25:22it
1:25:22and that that meeting the the
1:25:25minneapolis office was allowed to say
1:25:27here's what we knew blah blah blah they
1:25:29kind of sat there like this i didn't go
1:25:31to this meeting i was not invited
1:25:34but initially they were going to have
1:25:35the meeting with the phoenix office
1:25:38and the minneapolis office together
1:25:42and i think somebody at headquarters
1:25:44realized well we can't have williams
1:25:46coming in with salmon
1:25:48because they will be pretty strong if
1:25:51they're together
1:25:52so they separated they had the phoenix
1:25:55office come in separately obviously
1:25:57williams and you know telling him this
1:26:00is what we're saying
1:26:01and you know this is our story and we're
1:26:03sticking to it that was no way we could
1:26:06have possibly you know and they and
1:26:08again this is done in a very smooth way
1:26:11you don't have to say these words per se
1:26:14because everybody is everybody knows
1:26:18what's expected you don't have to give
1:26:20explicit orders you know you know from
1:26:22the the wind blowing which way it's
1:26:26going
1:26:27uh but there was these meetings and then
1:26:29shortly after those meetings there was a
1:26:32timeline that the legal councils began
1:26:36to prepare this timeline
1:26:38and they knew that at a certain point
1:26:41cheney would have to give in to having
1:26:43some official inquiry about 9 11. i
1:26:46think they started in november december
1:26:48preparing this timeline and the timeline
1:26:51was skewed this timeline was skewed to
1:26:53their narrative that there was nothing
1:26:55that could be done there was no probable
1:26:57cause you know their that was their
1:26:59their their narrative
1:27:01and so at one point i would get copied
1:27:04on on the timeline as it progressed
1:27:07and at one point i saw that they were
1:27:09leaving out some some key facts one of
1:27:12the facts was that i was on the phone
1:27:15where i had personal involvement and the
1:27:17one thing that i had personal
1:27:19involvement was i was on the phone with
1:27:21uh
1:27:22with uh maltby on 9 11 on the day of 9
1:27:2511 i'm on the phone with him and he says
1:27:28you guys can't do anything you can't go
1:27:29seek a criminal warrant uh you you don't
1:27:32know anything uh your office is just one
1:27:35office and if you do something like that
1:27:37you can screw it this is on 9 11 itself
1:27:41and uh
1:27:42you you might screw it up for somebody
1:27:44else
1:27:45and i say well you know at this point
1:27:47it would have to be the biggest
1:27:49coincidence in the world if this if the
1:27:51musawa case was not connected to the new
1:27:54york what's happening in new york and he
1:27:56comes back and says
1:27:58that's probably what it is just a big
1:28:02coincidence
1:28:03so i'm hearing from this guy on okay so
1:28:06that's kind of a big little they had
1:28:08this they had lots of details this
1:28:11timeline was all very detailed well but
1:28:14it's missing that
1:28:15and when i call up the headquarters to
1:28:17uh legal counsel people who by the way i
1:28:19know i know the people in legal counsel
1:28:21who are doing this i know him personally
1:28:24i worked with one in in new york city
1:28:28uh and uh and i'm told no
1:28:31that can't go in
1:28:33because that was only verbal
1:28:35that was only verbal well
1:28:38spike bowman's
1:28:40being uh saying there's no probable
1:28:42cause was also verbal but his is in
1:28:46there that the the unit chief of the
1:28:48legal counsel said there's no no
1:28:50probable cause of course that's in there
1:28:52and that was also verbal so i mean am i
1:28:55i know look you can see what's going on
1:28:57here which is that they're trying
1:28:59and the legal counsel of course like a
1:29:02lawyer like a corporate lawyer they're
1:29:04doing things
1:29:06not for
1:29:07uh public truth and justice and whatever
1:29:10they're doing things to protect the fbi
1:29:12this happened in the waco it happened in
1:29:15every single investigation internal is
1:29:18that they find ways to try to protect
1:29:20the agency that's their job i did the
1:29:23same thing in in my office too i tried
1:29:26to protect agents all the time when they
1:29:28messed up
1:29:29you know i talked about operating
1:29:32informants to go south wall i would go
1:29:34into judges and try to explain things i
1:29:36mean that's what you do as an agency
1:29:38council
1:29:39and so this was going on big time and
1:29:42it's it's just the norm
1:29:44uh after 9 11. so then when when i got
1:29:47called to uh
1:29:49be debriefed by the joint intelligence
1:29:51committee i couldn't sleep for a couple
1:29:53of nights and i kept thinking of all
1:29:55these little little facts and again i
1:29:57didn't even know half of it and i and i
1:29:59was afraid i wouldn't remember them so
1:30:01when i'm in there because i got a minder
1:30:04and you know nervous and everything i
1:30:06thought you know what and i said i gotta
1:30:08just put this on writing just because
1:30:10i'm not even gonna remember it
1:30:11and that's how it started when i first
1:30:13started to do it it was just to get it
1:30:15down in writing oh i didn't i didn't
1:30:17sleep a couple nights i went into the
1:30:19office at four o'clock in the morning
1:30:20and started getting it all down because
1:30:22i was it was like a day before i left or
1:30:25three but three i only had about three
1:30:27four days of warning that i was flying
1:30:29to new york washington
1:30:31and uh so then i i put it all down in
1:30:34writing and then over time
1:30:36i thought here's what happened
1:30:39the the staffers there were five or so
1:30:42staffers of the joint intelligence
1:30:44committee that were doing the fbi there
1:30:48were a few others doing the cia and a
1:30:50few others doing the nsa but there were
1:30:53like five and so the
1:30:55the head
1:30:56of these five staffers
1:30:58that were supposed to be doing the
1:31:00debriefings in the fbi were headed up by
1:31:04a former
1:31:05fbi legal counsel
1:31:08um forget his name he was irish his last
1:31:11name ah i knew oh neither no
1:31:15i can't remember his name right off the
1:31:17offhand but i i actually knew the guy
1:31:19personally i probably talked to him a
1:31:21little bit once or twice
1:31:24but i also saw
1:31:26that he had been
1:31:28the legal counsel in the fbi he was a
1:31:30unit chief former unit chief he wasn't
1:31:33just a low-level one he was a unit chief
1:31:35kind of like a spike bowman
1:31:38and
1:31:40he had been accused maybe by grassley i
1:31:44don't know who he had been accused by
1:31:46but he was accused by somebody of having
1:31:49helped cover up the danforth inquiry
1:31:54senator danforth had done the inquiry of
1:31:57waco
1:31:58and this guy who was in the f who was in
1:32:01the fbi at the time as a legal counsel
1:32:05uh had been accused of that
1:32:07and i
1:32:08liked the guy i liked him i a little bit
1:32:11i knew about him he was fine and i
1:32:13actually in my own head said i don't
1:32:15think that's true
1:32:17that he covered up anything of the fbi
1:32:20with danforth at the time this is what i
1:32:22thought in my head maybe naive but i
1:32:24thought i don't think he is but to be
1:32:27but to be careful
1:32:29because i thought he would skew it
1:32:33so he was the head of this these
1:32:34staffers
1:32:36and because he already had a track he
1:32:38was accused of having covered up a prior
1:32:41inquiry
1:32:42i thought you know what i can't just
1:32:45give it to these staffers
1:32:47and so then that's what triggered me to
1:32:49say i'm going to take it directly to a
1:32:52couple of people on the joint
1:32:54intelligence committee couple of the
1:32:56senators directly
1:32:57and so then i didn't know who to put i
1:32:59didn't even know who the two heads of it
1:33:01the minority and majority leader were i
1:33:04just knew feinstein and shell because i
1:33:06saw their names in a news article that
1:33:08they were asking questions uh in the
1:33:10joint they were on the joint
1:33:11intelligence committee they were asking
1:33:13questions i saw their names and i put
1:33:16those two on it i put internal affairs
1:33:19on it they call it office of
1:33:20professional responsibility
1:33:22i put them on and i put mueller on so i
1:33:25ended up with five i had the jicy of
1:33:27course i handed it to them then i had
1:33:30mueller i had to go to mueller's office
1:33:32and drop off a copy then i went to
1:33:34internal uh oh office of professional
1:33:37responsibility then i took a cab over to
1:33:39the senate building
1:33:41and delivered two envelopes you know
1:33:43sealed envelopes one feinstein's office
1:33:46and one to shelby the only reason i did
1:33:48that
1:33:49is because the jiggy
1:33:51uh staffers
1:33:53honestly i was not wrong i think they
1:33:56would have covered it up too my memo
1:33:58would have just been buried totally
1:34:00buried and if if the senators somewhere
1:34:05they're the ones who leaked it
1:34:07they're the ones who leaked it to cnn
1:34:09and new york times or whatever because i
1:34:11get this call to a day or two later well
1:34:14some staffer took it on themselves to
1:34:17leak it and if that hadn't happened
1:34:20you know heaven knows nothing would have
1:34:21come out it would have
1:34:23maybe eventually have come out but it
1:34:25would have taken a lot longer
1:34:28you know my final question to you
1:34:30after all this
1:34:33uh
1:34:34with all the pre-intelligence over the
1:34:37years way before 9 11 early 90s showing
1:34:40a strong link
1:34:42to saudi arabia
1:34:44foreign intelligence having maybe
1:34:46foreknowledge that we're existing inside
1:34:48the united states
1:34:50in 2002
1:34:53secretary of st of state colin powell
1:34:57uh goes before the united nations
1:34:59security council
1:35:01to get approval
1:35:02for the invasion of iraq
1:35:05and instead of using all the
1:35:06intelligence that is amassed by
1:35:08your office in minnesota phoenix new
1:35:11york
1:35:12wherever instead
1:35:15he uses unvetted information
1:35:18from the cia
1:35:20we get the war in iraq
1:35:22give me your door
1:35:24yeah i mean this is the kind of this is
1:35:27it you know again
1:35:28this is where all naivety of being an
1:35:31inside person
1:35:33goes up in smoke and i've told people
1:35:36now i am so cynical now i hate to even
1:35:40admit this about myself uh i can't you
1:35:43know like [ __ ] i sit here calling fouchy
1:35:46every name in the book because i know
1:35:47he's lying his head off
1:35:49and you know he is lying in wolinski his
1:35:52beautiful face but she's lying her head
1:35:54off and i'm i'm so cynical now that i
1:35:58frankly have a difficult time believing
1:36:01anyone in power at all and i think it
1:36:04actually
1:36:05i think we're we're at the this kind of
1:36:07the empire and this hubris that michael
1:36:10shoyer talks about
1:36:11uh imperial hubris i think the imperial
1:36:15hubris as bad as it was on 9 11
1:36:1920 years later it has gotten i mean it
1:36:22went from that bad to up here it is just
1:36:25horrible
1:36:26they think they can manufacture their
1:36:28own reality oh karl rove oh you stupid
1:36:32little people we can make our own
1:36:33reality and you're just left to deal
1:36:36with the
1:36:36aftermath hahaha
1:36:38that kind of that thing that a karl rove
1:36:41who already was a you know creepy
1:36:45lying um you know
1:36:47constant constant line in politics
1:36:50so karl rove is imbued with constant
1:36:53line but karl rove's mentality about
1:36:56making your own reality
1:36:57that's gone to everybody now everybody
1:37:00who's even at a low level the russia
1:37:02gate uh the covet all of this stuff now
1:37:05as everybody thinks you know what we own
1:37:08the media we can lie about anything with
1:37:11impunity not a single soul has ever been
1:37:15held accountable for the most egregious
1:37:17colin powell my god he's he's worshipped
1:37:20and adored and he's a hero blah blah
1:37:23blah
1:37:24a couple of people on alternative media
1:37:27call out powell he's murdered millions
1:37:30of people
1:37:31all based on lies
1:37:33and you know connie rice and hillary
1:37:36clinton and samantha power both parties
1:37:39it has nothing to do with partisanship
1:37:42it's people who get those positions in
1:37:44power they have no
1:37:46they have no example of anyone
1:37:50who's ever been held accountable so why
1:37:52should they even begin why should this
1:37:54even enter their brain and make them
1:37:57even think
1:37:58i oh maybe i shouldn't do this maybe i
1:38:01shouldn't say this there's nothing to
1:38:03even enter the brain because we've now
1:38:06gone a full
1:38:0720 20 plus years
1:38:10and not a single bit of truth has ever
1:38:12mattered if the little bit of truth yes
1:38:15drebs and grabs eventually come out it
1:38:18doesn't have any impact on anything like
1:38:20i said they i don't think they've even
1:38:23made a way
1:38:24for any bit of accountability to to see
1:38:28if people can
1:38:30to prevent
1:38:31officials from lying that they either
1:38:34didn't read a memo didn't see a memo
1:38:37even when their name is on it
1:38:39that they did see it read it or or
1:38:42whatever and they would have to explain
1:38:44why they didn't do anything
1:38:46even that little tiny tiny bit of making
1:38:50a bit of accountability has never
1:38:52happened and people still go up there oh
1:38:55i didn't see it ah didn't see it i
1:38:58didn't know about that
1:38:59and there's nothing to hold him to it
1:39:01because there's no way that you can you
1:39:03don't you know a grassley or someone
1:39:05might say are you sure you didn't see
1:39:07this that's all they can do
1:39:09or or rand paul with trying to grill
1:39:12fouchy about the wuhan lab i mean
1:39:14there's almost nothing
1:39:16and and they can just lie with total
1:39:19impunity
1:39:20and you know i'm sorry i'm real cynical
1:39:23at this point but you know i have i have
1:39:25the facts for the cynicism
1:39:28you know and and the facts like i said i
1:39:31didn't even know about half of it i
1:39:32didn't know how louis free how could you
1:39:34stand up in front of a room full of
1:39:39parents and wives and husbands
1:39:42who died
1:39:44and spout out your lies from saudi
1:39:46arabia how can you do that
1:39:48how can fauci lie about these things i
1:39:51don't know
1:39:52i think
1:39:53i'm sorry i'm going into covent but i
1:39:55think they're good they're apt now to
1:39:57kill lots and lots of children
1:39:59um if you have grandchildren i honestly
1:40:02five to eleven i think fauci has no
1:40:05conscience whatsoever but he in his own
1:40:10ego defense i you know criminals have
1:40:12this psychopaths have this strong ego
1:40:15defense
1:40:16and if you're in a system where
1:40:17everybody lies and cheats and gets away
1:40:20with it you're going to say well i'm not
1:40:22doing anything different than anybody
1:40:24else and that's how very you know your
1:40:26ego defense is what's different about me
1:40:29i'm you know that's de vecchio's defense
1:40:31he wasn't the only one
1:40:33he was one who got caught because of uh
1:40:36what he thinks of as a stupid first
1:40:38office agent the same thing with what
1:40:40same thing with all of the agents who
1:40:42operated boulder they blame that's what
1:40:45criminals do they blame the victims they
1:40:47blame other people and they don't ever
1:40:50admit that they did anything wrong
1:40:52uh what's his name at me lie um forget
1:40:55his name now but the the got uh the
1:40:57miley guy who
1:40:59uh
1:41:00oh
1:41:01i forget his name the the soldier
1:41:05yeah and he did no time in prison he did
1:41:08nothing but he got up callie kelly
1:41:11i think it's sergeant or cali is the one
1:41:13the main one
1:41:14william yeah william kelly jr yeah
1:41:17callie
1:41:19finally just a couple three years ago
1:41:21says i'm really sorry for what i did
1:41:25that's an unusual thing
1:41:28callie said that
1:41:29uh mcnamara in that fog of war when he's
1:41:33grilled he said yeah i made a couple of
1:41:35mistakes
1:41:36you know due to the fog of war
1:41:39uh so that's that's actually very
1:41:41unusual the majority of people strong
1:41:44ego defense they i don't admit it to
1:41:46their own self
1:41:48they never did anything wrong it was all
1:41:50the people around them blah blah blah
1:41:53and to some extent when you're in a
1:41:55system you have systemic
1:41:57problems like this systemic make your
1:42:00own reality anytime you want to make up
1:42:03your own reality you're allowed to do it
1:42:05because the greater foreign pop we're
1:42:07going to go to war with china and russia
1:42:09russia gate the greater
1:42:11foreign policy goals trump anything like
1:42:15that you know truth goes way down the
1:42:17priority list and when you're in a
1:42:19system like that almost everybody's
1:42:21going to lie
1:42:22because that's the that's the nature of
1:42:24the beast
1:42:25um sorry to be so cynical but no colleen
1:42:28uh the fbi agent out of minnesota
1:42:31whistleblower i want to thank you so
1:42:34much for coming on thank you very much
1:42:36yeah
1:42:37yep keep

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of An Interview With Coleen Rowley (Minneapolis FBI & Whistleblower) by The Darkened Hour, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 16,245 words across 2,592 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.