It's A Second Sunday Morning Bonus Podcast For 8-24-25-Part 3

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Michael Barry Joe Cheryl Atkinson is our guest. The
book is Stonewall. Cheryl, let's talk about what happened to you.
You went from being a reporter of news to being
the subject yourself, sort of an awkward state of affairs.
And CBS was a bit reluctant about how that all

(00:21):
came about, But talk about that if you would.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
During my Benghazi coverage, my family and I had been
suffering these amazing technical disruptions in our house for a
couple of years that really peaked during the fall of
twenty twelve, but never associated that with any sort of
surveillance or intrusion. We just thought Verizon sucked, you know,
they couldn't fix the problem. A lot of it was
associated with our fires line. They'd been out of the

(00:46):
house so many times. But a couple of sources of
mine implied that I was probably being monitored because of
my reporting on Benghazi. And these are people who, you know,
connected and well informed. So I didn't just blow it off,
even though it sounded a little bit far fetched. And
remember this is before Edward Snowden, before we knew that

(01:08):
the government had confiscated records of associated press reporters or
targeted Fox News reporter as a potential co conspirator and
a leak investigation. Without that context, I really didn't think
anything was going on, but I did listen to these folks,
and long story short, someone offered to get a really
well placed forensic expert look at my computer to see

(01:30):
if there was something in there that they could find,
and indeed they did. They found evidence of a long
term remote surveillance and operate operating effort.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
That was Patel hired by CBS or by you.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Patel was hired by CBS and that was not Patel.
So prior to Patel, oh, this was the there was
a confidential source that was really the best to look
for this sort of thing, and he found in the
computer software proprietary to a federal government agency. He said
that had monitored my keystrokes, been into the CBS system,

(02:04):
had activated my Skype to listen into audio in the
room when it wanted to without me knowing it, had
obtained all of my passwords, had looked through my files
and so on. They could tell the date and time
that some of the software was downloaded. They knew a
lot of specifics. So then after that I reported it
to CBS because it's a very serious thing if there's

(02:26):
an intrusion into your corporate system. Of course, CBS, since
my source was confidential, hired Patel that's a pseudonym, but
a computer firm of their own, who came out to
my house. I don't think he expected to find anything,
but within a couple of hours he too confirmed the
remote intrusions into my CBS laptop and also my personal
Apple desktop computer.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
So two different computers, your work and your home. And
in addition to confirming what he'd found already, he found
that they had planted classified documents on your computer, the
possession of which presumably would be a crime. You can
answer to that, but that they were buried so deep
that you never would have found them.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
That's according to my first analyst. When the report was
given to me as to what he found, the reporter said,
you know, did you have classified documents on the computer?
And I said no, And he said, well, there were
three on there, buried deep in your operating system, in
a place you wouldn't know about unless you're some sort
of computer with which I'm not, and it would not

(03:30):
necessarily be illegal for me to have them I've had
classified documents before. As long as I didn't encourage somebody
to break the law to get them for me, it
could be a crime for whoever took them. So I
guess a couple of theories, according to my sources, are
that those documents could have been used at some point

(03:50):
to obtain a legal wire tap against me if they
were doing a leak investigation, perhaps if they wanted to
do such a thing, Or they could be used to
frame a leaker or a whistleblower. And we now know
that this administration has heavily, heavily targeted leakers and whistleblowers
inside the government. They want to know who's talking. They
want to stop them from talking to reporters.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
So every administration wants to stop them from talking. They're
willing to go two levels that are illegal to do so.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
I think every administration wants leakers to stop. This one
has prosecuted more of them than any than all other
administrations combined, and has been I think it's agreed upon
more aggressive and more constraining even to people who aren't leaking.
People who just want to converse with the press inside
federal agencies are being suppressed from having normal conversations now.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
So you're telling me that when Barack Obama says sunlight
is the best disinfectant, that he doesn't mean it.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
He may have meant it at the time. I think
all the administrations mean it when they come in and
say we're going to be open and transparent, and then
the reality is far different. There's now a consensus among journalists, including,
as I like to say, those from the New York
Times in USA Today and wash A Post, Associated Press,
all the networks. We've all objected verbally and in writing
to this what we see as this administration's unprecedented crackdown

(05:08):
on transparency and press freedoms.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
You write in the book Stonewalled by Cheryl Atkinson on
May six, twenty thirteen, I make contact with an excellent
source who has crucial information the name of the person
responsible for my computer intrusions. He provides me the name,
and I recognize it. I'm not surprised. It strikes me
as desperate and cowardly that those responsible would resort to

(05:34):
these tactics. That's all I can say about that. Now.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Why, there are a couple of reasons. I'm looking at
legal options, and I'm taking advice from my attorney, and.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
You feel certain that you know the person who directed
that you be spied upon.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
The way you phrase a question, I can't say I
know a guy who gave the top order, you know,
to make it happen. If such a thing occurred, I
do feel pretty confident I know at least a player involved.
But I'm not using the name because partly because that
source that came from a confidential human source, and partly

(06:14):
because of the legal action we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
And do you think that was a retaliation for coverage
from a brusque personal encounter.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
I don't know if retaliation is the right word, because
it's not as though they were paying me back or
thought I would ever know about it. They were monitoring
my work. I think what they were trying to do
is go the extra step in what they tried to
do on the record, which is find out what I'm
about to report, find out who's talking to me, finding

(06:49):
out what I know. And I don't think I'm the
only one that they were doing this too. I would
never have known about it if I hadn't stumbled across
excellent sources. Most people don't have access to. Probably other people,
I assume other journalists were on a sort of list
that we're being looked at. I wouldn't be the only one,
but they would have no way to know it.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Thirty seconds in this segment, if the names are ever
released as to who was involved with this, will we
recognize any of those names?

Speaker 2 (07:16):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Do you suspect that the names are big enough that
we would recognize them?

Speaker 2 (07:20):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
You're not certain that no one that we would recognize.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Wait, that's a double negative. I know.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
I confused myself in the question. You're not willing to
rule it out?

Speaker 2 (07:34):
You might? I don't know, and I don't know all
the names, So who knows whose names could turn up?

Speaker 1 (07:39):
What does that even mean? Or with Sheryl Atkinson, the
book is stonewall coming up? These are speaks the truth
you've got the Michael Berry Show. I have maintained for
years that the reason John Bayner will not take the

(08:00):
actions that his membership demands, and in fact the reason
he balls in public, is that he is in the
untenable position, the unenviable position, that the Obama administration, through
their operatives, have personal information, whether it's on sexual alliances

(08:21):
or business deals of questionable integrity who knows it is
of course not uncommon to the culture inside the Beltway,
and I have maintained for years that that is the reason.
I've had congressional staffers tell me that Bainer's drunk most
of the time, and that the administration has the goods
on him, and that it has been widely discussed, and

(08:42):
some of these folks have turned out to be accurate
every single time they've given me things that I didn't
trust him with. So is that so far fetched when
we now know that Cheryl Atkinson was spied upon by
the same government. Let's talk about what is at least

(09:02):
as troubling for me that the government was apparently presumably
spying on you, was that it didn't appear from your
book that CBS was backing you up the way you
thought they should.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
I would just say the response from CBS was way
calmer and less upset than.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
I thought it when they should have been shot.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
I thought, any intrusion into your corporate system, whoever did it,
let's just say somebody did it. Say it's China, Say
it's some hacker. We were always led to believe through
our training, corporate training and so on. That's a super
serious affair, but it wasn't as if alarm bells went
off at the highest levels. And then from a personal standpoint,

(09:48):
I thought that they would send experts to my house
to examine, you know, everything from the place where an
extra fiber optics fiosline had been found dangling off the
back of my house to my personal systems, to make
sure that my sources and the future were protected, and
that CBS's interests were protected, and maybe some of my

(10:09):
personal interests too, since this has happened to me as
a result of my work at CBS, and I know
that when Associated Press learned that the administration had confiscated reporters,
you know, phone records, they felt improperly that they took
great deal of steps to try to protect their sources,
and they put in place special processes so that their
phones it would be harder to listen into their phones

(10:30):
and so on. None of that happened in my instance,
and I just thought the response just didn't seem to
make sense. With the infraction was that the reason you left? No,
I stayed another year, but I will say during the
you're under contract. Yeah, during this time period, I was

(10:52):
in discussions, I had initiated discussions to try to leave
ahead of contracts, So there was that tension going on
in the background. I don't know if that had anything
to do with their response to this intrusion, the fact
that I was also asking to be out of my contract.
But at some point months later, after the final CBS
forensics report came into them, I was called into the

(11:15):
office president the company was there, David Rhodes and the
bureau chief in Washington, and they said, in no uncertain terms,
we support you. We've got these forensics back. It confirms
the remote intrusion undeniably. We're going to put out a
press release. We're behind you one thousand percent. And by
then I believe I had agreed to stay another year.
So it's not as if they fought me or entirely

(11:38):
against me. I just felt like it took months and
months for them to arrive at a position I would
have thought they would have come to.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Well, would you say in the book that you were
surprised that they all of a sudden seemed ready to
go forward and charge on on this issue.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
I was because it was a turnabout.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
The CBS then hired Sheryl Atkinson. By the way, as
our guest in the book is stonewalled. CBS then hired
a former NSA official or an NSA official to come
internal to CBS, and that concerned you at the time.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Why for the computers, I think that was prior to that.
I believe I'd have to look at my notes. But
around two and early twenty twelve, maybe I only learned
about this third hand when there was so much inaction
on the computer front. A colleague said to me, well,
isn't the former NSSA guy you know that heads our

(12:29):
computer division for CBS helping you? This is right up
his alley. And I heard of no such thing. Nobody
had spoken to me or talked to me. And I said, well,
who's the NSA guy? And I did a little research
with help, and there is a guy that I guess
came from the Obama White House and worked for the NSSA,
that Molonov, right, yeah, Joel Molanoff, who had not contacted me.

(12:51):
And he did send out an email after my intrusions
were confirmed, not to me, but sort of to every
buddy saying if anything like this ever happens, here's what
you should do, and you must report it and so on.
So I emailed him because I hadn't heard from him,
and I said, maybe you're not aware of my situation
because I haven't heard from you, but I know I'm

(13:13):
supposed to report it. I have reported it, and I
haven't heard from you, you know, any follow up? And
I didn't hear back. I emailed again, and I got
a curt response from him. I felt it was Kurt
that just said, rest assured, we're well aware of your situation,
We're taking all steps necessary, and we'll be in touch.
And then that was the last day ever heard.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Let me play a devil's advocate here or conspiracy theorist,
and let's just positive theory that CBS.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Was involved in the computer and test in the computer interrutions.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Let me just let me model that out. I'm not
asking you to say that that's what you believe. You
have not said that obviously, but let's just play that
out as if it were true. And they bring in
a guy from the NSA who could have been the
group that was spying on you all along, and he
says to every other CBS employee, because presume you weren't
the only one. Again, my crazy theory. He says, Hey,

(14:04):
if you think you've been hacked, let me know, but
doesn't point out that we already know one of our
employees has been That's a great way to gauge whether
employees are figuring out they're being spiedal.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
I hadn't thought of it that way, but I guess
you could look at it that way. I'm trying to remember.
The wording of the email said something like if you
suspect an intrusion, here the process, and I think it said,
do not go to law enforcement specifically, and report it
to CBS. So I can see how you would come

(14:41):
up with that conspiracy theory.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
And you're right, since the memo is clear that the
victim has a duty to report, and since Molinov has
never acknowledged my incident, nor has he contacted me, and
then you send him the email, which of course he
doesn't respond to, and then when he finally does respond,
he gives you a perfunctory response. By my reckoning, if
I'm running CBS News just from a news judgment question,

(15:06):
I've got a reporter that's been spied on, probably by
the government. I've got confirmation I'm running that. I mean,
this is the story of the decade.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
There were some corporate officials who felt that way and
were contacting me on their own saying, why aren't we
doing this? This is way bigger than Watergate? Why aren't
we doing our own stories on it? And especially, I
think even for those who wanted to think as I
initially did, that it sounded far fetched. Once the news
came out about Edward Snowden and Associated Press and Fox News,

(15:40):
a lot of things seemed to fall in place. So
those who might have been very skeptical before, I think
at this point should have said, Okay, you know there
was some targeting of journalists. There was targeting of whistleblowers
going on. We know that for sure. But again, I
can't explain why there wasn't more more of a reaction.
I only know there wasn't.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Here we go again with the constant theme as part
of a pattern, that what you expected of your employer
of twenty one year CBS was never the reaction, and
that you were disappointed, surprised, hurt by this.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
I was surprised and disappointed, and I felt as though
there should be more attention paid to the news product
and the protection of the news product, and the idea
that somebody had been infiltrating our system and perhaps getting
access to our sources and our private information.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
And the cybersecurity director not only never reached out to you,
didn't respond to your first email, gave you a perfunctory
response a second time, but never sat down and asked
you what exactly had happened to you?

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Right Nobody from CBS ever came to my house conducted
an in depth interview. I did report it, as I
said to my bureau chief early on, but there was
just an, I guess, an intense lack of curiosity and
followed through on the part of anybody else. From what
I could tell.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Wow, that is so disturbing on a level that you
almost don't want to think about. Cheryl Atkinson is our guest.
We will continue our conversation with her coming up. The
book is stonewalled. You can get it most anywhere, and
if you can't get it where you go, then buy
it online. The most disturbing thing about this is not

(17:24):
the individual case. It is the factors at play and
the players at play that may be working to quash
you getting information that the media would normally provide. Look
if a guy's good at news or he isn't, those
are market related issues, and the marketplace can determine what

(17:44):
their ratings are. But if media outlets are assisting this
government in spinning lies, particularly where lives were lost, this
is disturbing on a level. Let's talk about Cheryl Akison
case again, she's our guest, I mean the CBS case,
going back to CBS, because to me, that takes this

(18:08):
to a new level if in fact CBS was involved
my allegation, not yours, but you right. Even more disturbing
word came to me that a CBS manager had convened
a private meeting with a colleague asking him to turn
over the name or names of the inside confidential sources
who had first helped me identify the computer intrusions back

(18:28):
in January. The colleague didn't have that information. CBS is
asking one of your colleagues, Hey, who helped Cheryl figure
out who was intruding on her computer. That's weird.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
There is a lot of weird stuff. And it's funny because.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
So almost like they're trying to paint you as paranoid.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Either that well, in that instance, I think they know
I wasn't paranoid. They were trying to get real information.
Who is my source, SOBS was trying to find my source.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
But the only reason they could have asked you.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Well, and I had already told them I couldn't tell them.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
So that's why do they need your source, other than
to determine the veracity that suggests they don't believe.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
No, No, I don't think it was to determine the veracity.
I think it was to try to identify who was
talking to me from government connected people.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
And helped me understand if they're on your side, they
don't need to know.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
I wouldn't think so. I think it was wholly inappropriate
for them to go behind my back and ask a
colleague who a confidential source of mine was. I can
only tell you that's what happened. And it's funny when
you ask me these questions. I think about in between
all of this drama, I'm covering stories, but I'm going
into work every day with the computer intrusion, the politics

(19:45):
at CBS of the computer intrusion, and also trying to
cover stories with my producer. And I guess that helps
explain why I ultimately left. It just got to be
so much of the job. Instead of just covering news,
what should be easy is involved in navigating first of
all the obstacles from the targets of the stories who
don't want you doing them, that's one thing. And then

(20:07):
to navigate the obstacles from inside your own network, from
those who some who don't want those stories told. And
then to be navigating the politics of the computer issue.
And yes, some bosses. When I was first trying to
leave CBS a year before I did, I heard were
whispering or trying to spread around that I was paranoid.
Even though they had the forensics that had confirmed the intrusion,

(20:31):
they hadn't publicly acknowledged it yet. That would be still
to come, but they were implying to some people that
I was paranoid over the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
You write in the book Stonewall. The next morning, CBS
This Morning briefly interviews me about the case. It's generating
a great deal of interest and requests for interviews from
other news media. The only non CBS entity that the
company wishes me to speak with is Bill O'Reilly from
the old Rally Factor on Fox News. I fly to
New York and appear on his evening program. What was

(21:01):
limiting you to O'Reilly? An attempt to Bolster that because
they felt like that would get the story out, or
was it an attempt to bury the story.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
I don't think they thought they would bury the story
because he is so widely viewed. I think the way
they described it to me is they would we would
do one big outlet that had asked for an interview. Again,
I had battled in the last couple of years at
CBS any media which they didn't want me to do

(21:30):
a lot of media appearances that were wanting to promote
great news stories and great work that we had done.
They really dialed back on me having appearances sometimes. I
was told they didn't want me to do appearances because
they thought I would be asked about CBS controversies unrelated
to me that they didn't want me speaking to. And
I said, well, I'm perfectly capable of answering questions about

(21:53):
my stories and not answering questions about other people's stories.
But there was a great deal of clamping down the
last year or two.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Meanwhile, Senator Widen is it pronounced widen yep has a
Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, in his crosshairs, and
he accuses him of not giving a straight answer to
the Senate Intelligence Committee three months before, Widen had asked
Clapper at the March twelfth, twenty thirteen hearing, does the
NSSA collect any type of data at all on millions

(22:24):
of or hundreds of millions of Americans? And you point
out that not only does Clapper lie by saying no,
but you get to his body language and all what
happened there.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
You want to read that little part because I don't
rememb exactly what I wrote, but I did find it
very interesting when I wrote.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Those, sir. Clapper replies, quickly shaking his head and pressing
the fingers of his right hand against his forehead, almost
shielding his eyes from making direct contact as he looks down, down, up, down,
all inside of about two seconds, it does not. Widen repeats,
eyebrows raised, not whittinge. Clapper continues shaking his head and

(23:02):
begins stroking his forehead with the four fingers. These are
cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect but not wittingly.
Clapper looks up and down fifteen times by my account,
in the span of that brief.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Answer, and we now know I didn't say he lied,
because that's putting a motivation in someone's head. He acknowledged
the information he gave was false, and he had different
reasons for why he gave the false information. But we
now know that, of course they were monitoring in some
way hundreds of millions, collecting data on hundreds.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Of Edward Snowden. For that, that's right, But at that
point we didn't know who Edward Snowden was.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Right, and Widen knew the reason Wyden was asking the questions.
Widen on the Intelligence Committee was privy to information long
before he was aware. He was aware long before we
were that this was happening, and felt that it was wrong,
this collection of data, and was trying to bring it
to light in a public format a way that wouldn't violate,
you know, intelligence restrictions. And that's why he was so

(24:04):
outraged to hear Clapper's answer, because Widen knew his answer
was wrong.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Why would Widen Why would Clapper answer instead of saying,
as he often does, let's talk about this in private,
we'll talk about that in public. Coming up, our guest
is Sheryl Atkinson. The book is Stonewalled, third degree black belt.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
I just tested for fourth and I think I passed.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Oh, we need to get can you get Chad in here.
Chad our Chad Naganishi is an MMA fighter.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
I don't want to fight anything.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah. Yeah, it's a Japanese name and he's from Hawaii
and he grew up with bjpenn. He fought with bjpen
That's what he does every day. There's one of them
that he.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Can kick his butt.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
You think you could, yeah, okay, it'd be fun, y'all
could do. We could have some striking exercises or something.
But he there's one of the disciplines that he says
it's real easy. Is that it taekwondo. Yeah, he doesn't
respect like you could be you know, fourth degree and
he's like, that's like a brown belt in karate.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
It may be Oh, which one w answer.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
He's such a big fan of your work and an
admirer that he's remaining silent on the subject. Okay, well
that's as you could. You want to find him, though.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
I could. I could kick an apple off the top
of his.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Head high heels the William Till experience. Back to the
matter at hand. We ended that interview ran out of time.
Why would the NSA director even lie? Why would he
answer the question knowing he's lying on the record. I mean, look,
Roger Craiger, Roger Clemens had to come back to Washington

(25:36):
and spend millions on a Rusty Harden here in legal
fees over whether he shot steroids in his butt?

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Was he was he an essay director at the time,
or wasn't he director of national intelligence?

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah? Do you say national intelligence?

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Why not say?

Speaker 2 (25:51):
I mean? And I point out in the book the
best answer if you didn't want to tell something that
wasn't true would be to say, let's go to closed
session or I can't talk about that and open session.
I don't know why he gave that answer, especially in
light of the fact that Wyden claims he sent over
the question I believe a day in advance, so that
he would know to expect it.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
So they would have debated it. And he knew he
was lying, or he knew he wasn't telling the truth
to use.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Your language, he knew he's giving an accurate information.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yes, I yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
I can't explain why. And I guess he thought maybe
Widen couldn't really call him on it because it was
based on, you know, intelligence Widen couldn't talk about in public,
so maybe he'd never have to address it.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
We were talking off airon will conclude the hour with
this conversation about your concerns as a longtime newsperson, as
a person that's watched the events of our nation, and
a person with a relatively newfound willingness to look at
conspiracy theories twice because sometimes it turns out they're true.

(26:52):
And we were talking about theories that are out there
with regard to these protests that keep popping up. Eric
Garner and New York and of course Ferguson and the
tie in from al Qaeda or ISIS or different groups
that are much more sophisticated than they ever were to
use civil unrest as a means of infiltration.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
We have heard evidence in the last year or so
of the successful ways that terrorist type organizations can recruit.
How can they get Americans and Europeans? How are they
speaking to them in such a way that some of
them want to join the cause. And it's been said
that they are able to play on the disenfranchisement and

(27:35):
the anger of those who feel disenfranchised, And this is
what they did, according to intelligence sources in other countries
where they prayed on civil unrest that existed, they saw
an opening. They used meaning the terrorists social media to
exacerbate it where they whereby they could move into the

(27:56):
vacuum as they've done and make inroads. One wonders, as
we see this civil unrest over the racial incidents, or
the alleged racial incidents here in the United States, would terrorists,
who we know are trying to make inroads in this
country and damage this country seize upon this or see
it at least as an opportunity to get an advantage

(28:19):
in the chaos, and perhaps even to recruit some of
the young, disenfranchised people.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Which wouldn't be new. It was the Gangster Disciples or
the King Street. I can't remember the group, but I
saw a story on this out of Chicago when Kadafi
was after Reagan had struck Kadafi's tent and killed his daughter,
and Kaddafi was looking for ways to attack us back.
And of course there was Locker Bee and everything that

(28:46):
went along with all that, And there was a conviction
for a black gang in Chicago. They had received I
think it was a million bucks in a payout, plus
the cost of doing it. There was The plan was
to drive these trucks full of gasoline empty the trucks
all at one time into the sewer system and light it.

(29:08):
And it was an attempt by Kaddafi to test what
you could do. He wasn't sure it would work, but
they had it all and you know, they nailed him.
The guys went to jail for a long time. Kaddafi
paid It was at least a million. There were allegations
that it was up to three or four for Lewis
Farrakhan's mosque in Chicago, a rather odd charitable gesture. You've

(29:30):
had a series of these sort of because if you're
going to look to exploit the discontented in America, young
black youths would seem to be an easy way to go.
You throw some cash at them.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
And you saw Farakhan's language recently speaking about killing them,
meaning I guess white police officers are killing one of
theirs when they killed one of ours, meaning a young
black or black youth. So I do think there's reason
to watch for that possible attempted exploitations some terrorists or
not st stupid And this are the very types of

(30:01):
scenarios I would imagine they look.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
For Kwan al Lex, who is a new Black Panther
leader here in Houston, and we disagree on a lot
of issues. But he told me off air and then
was willing to come on air and talk about at
the Black mosque that he attends, or that he was attend,
it was a different one than he attends. He noticed
all of a sudden these Middle Eastern men coming in
and they were very hush hushed in the way they

(30:26):
were going about their business, and it was odd. This
was not a Saudi temple or a Saudi mosque, and
these guys were showing up, and he sensed that something
very odd was going on. We've heard from him and
others that Middle Eastern Muslims are going into American prisons
and that they target young black men to recruit presumably

(30:50):
to Islam. But what we're seeing with the recruiter out
of Oklahoma is recruiting them for Islam, is meaning recruiting
them to behead in these.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Cases something to watch for. And I would imagine and
think that our intelligence experts are looking out for that
even as their you know, is these situations are developing
this country. They have to be looking at that.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
Well, let me conclude by saying that I appreciate the
good work you have done professionally over all these years.
But particularly over the last few years. I think it's
been brave to stand up against and expose what has
happened to you, and I think we're a better republic
because of it.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Well, thank you for having me and have me on
such a long form where we could really talk about
some of this in a meaningful way. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
It's a long form. It didn't seem like a.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Long time, no exactly.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
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(32:00):
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(32:24):
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(32:47):
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(33:12):
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