October 7, 2025 • 42 mins
On this special episode of Unresolved, Micheal is joined by bestselling author and CNN lead anchor Jake Tapper to discuss his new book, Race Against Terror, a nonfiction thriller that begins on a crowded refugee ship in the Mediterranean and ends in a courtroom in Brooklyn.
The book revolves around Ibrahim Sulieman Adnan Harun, also known as Spin Ghul ("The White Rose"), an al-Qaeda jihadist who was prosecuted for his actions during the War on Terror; as well as the family of an American soldier killed during an ambush by Spin Ghul. Along the way, you get to meet the officials involved in the decade-long case, many of whom spent years working on it in various ways.
During this conversation, Micheal and Jake discuss the book, what drew Jake to the story, what Spin Ghul's prosecution may mean for the future, how it relates to current events, and so much more.
Thanks to Jake Tapper for chatting with us, and make sure to check out his new book, Race Against Terror, wherever you can find it!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.
The book revolves around Ibrahim Sulieman Adnan Harun, also known as Spin Ghul ("The White Rose"), an al-Qaeda jihadist who was prosecuted for his actions during the War on Terror; as well as the family of an American soldier killed during an ambush by Spin Ghul. Along the way, you get to meet the officials involved in the decade-long case, many of whom spent years working on it in various ways.
During this conversation, Micheal and Jake discuss the book, what drew Jake to the story, what Spin Ghul's prosecution may mean for the future, how it relates to current events, and so much more.
Thanks to Jake Tapper for chatting with us, and make sure to check out his new book, Race Against Terror, wherever you can find it!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, it's Michael. Today's episode of the podcast is
a very special one. Not only is it an interview
episode with a special guest who will intro in just
a minute or so, but it happens to come out
on a big anniversary. The day this episode comes out,
October seventh, twenty twenty five, happens to be ten years
to the day that I uploaded the very first episode
of Unresolved. A lot has changed since then, not only
(00:23):
for me personally, but I'm sure for all of you listening,
and I wanted to take a moment to say thank
you to everyone for coming along for the ride. So
to all of you out there listening, Yeah, you there
right now with the face, thank you for listening to
and supporting Unresolved in your own special way. It truly
means the world to me, and honestly, again, from the
bottom of my heart, thank you for helping make this
(00:44):
show what it is. On today's episode of Unresolved, we
are joined by very special guest, Jake Pepper. You may
know him as one of America's most recognizable newsmen. He
has been the host of CNN's The Lead with Jake
Tapper since twenty thirteen. And one of the co hosts
of State of the Union. Since twenty fifteen, he's moderated
(01:07):
presidential debates, served as a senior White House correspondent for
ABC News, and received numerous accolades for his reporting and
writing over the years. Today, Jake joined me to talk
about his new book, which is coming out to day.
This episode comes out October seventh. It is called Race
Against Terror, and it is an incredible read. The book
opens with a moment that sounds almost too strange to
(01:29):
be true. On a ship packed with migrants crossing the Mediterranean,
a small, nervous man pulls aside an Italian officer and
calmly says he's not a refugee, He's a fighter. He
says he's with al Qaeda. That man's name is ed
Non Ibrahim Haroun, though he goes by a chilling alias
spin Ghoul, also known as the White Rose. What follows
(01:50):
is the unbelievable story of how this self proclaimed gihawtist
captured after a US ambush in Afghanistan and lost years
of chaos and prison transfers, only reappears on a crowded
refugee ship bound for Europe. Tapper follows the thread from
that chance encounter all the way to Brooklyn, where a
team of FBI agents and prosecutors work for years to
(02:11):
bring Spingoul to justice. The case winds through black sites,
diplomatic standoffs, and an American courtroom that must decide how
to try a man who fought on a battlefield, not
a city street. It's a legal and moral puzzle, one
that forces everyone involved to confront where the line between
soldier and terrorist, between vengeance and justice really lies. But
(02:32):
the story's heart isn't just in that courtroom. Jake Tapper
intertwines it with the family of an American soldier killed
in spin Goool's ambush, and how his loved ones struggle
to make sense of a loss that rippled across continents.
By the end, the book becomes about far more than
just one act of terror. It's about the cost of
the endless war that followed nine to eleven, about grief
(02:53):
that refuses to curdle into hate, and about what it
takes to hold onto your humanity in the face of
the worst that humanity can. Now. With all that being said,
here's my conversation with Jake Tapper, So thank you for
(03:16):
taking the time chat with me going so far.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's good, you know. I'm I'm I'm fifty six. So
i go to the gym and I'm so proud of myself.
It's really ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
That's something to be proud of.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And I'm like walking around, I'm like, yeah, actually, my
body is actually functioning today. I'm not. I don't feel
like I'm about to fall into a coffin.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
All right, I'm right there with you. I'm thirty five.
I have a six month old son. So if I
could get in in the stroller and go for a
walk in the morning.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, you're exhausted. That's that's what you're going through. That's
a whole different thing. You're exhausted. They got the best
compliment of my life about this book from a new
mom who was telling me that she was on a
plane to LA You couldn't put the book down even
though she was so exhausted from having babies. And I
was like, oh my god, that's the greatest compliment in
(04:06):
the world. Souse. I know, I know that exhaustion.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
That's exactly how I feel too.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah. No, they do sleep, they do sleep, I promise.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I've got a four year old and things were starting
to normalize again. She was about three when we found
out that we were pregnant with the second. I was like, oh,
there goes free time again.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, it's good though, it's good. And then they get
older and then they go to sleep at seven or
eight and you're like, oh wow, all this free time.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah, but it's funny.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I was in like the same boat because I've been
trying to read for you know, like two three months now,
and it's just trying to keep the attention span is
so hard. But reading this book, it was like, it's
a fast paced, like thriller with all these different twists,
and it was really cool.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Thank you. Yeah, well that was the goal, is to
write it like a thriller.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
It feels very cinematic. I don't know if that's what
you're going for, but it feels that way.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well, I mean the story just is that way. So yeah,
I mean I tried to. I leaned into it as
much as I could, Okay, but I mean.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, nice, Well, you know, getting started, I'll record like
a little forward to put on this episode to kind
of like catch listeners up with what the story is.
But would you mind touching upon how you learned about
this story and what made you want to write a
book about it?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
You want me to do that right now, or you
want to do it like for sure, yeah, whenever you're
it's a It's just a very simple story. Really. So
I wrote a book called The Outpost about a bass
in Afghanistan that was that was doomed. I wrote that.
It came out in twenty twelve, and it was a
very meaningful experience to me. And then I didn't want
(05:40):
to just follow it up with any other nonfiction book.
I wanted to feel as dedicated and devoted to whatever
my next nonfiction project was as I was to The Outpost.
And so years past and I wrote a few novels,
and then one day in October twenty twenty two, I
was out in rural Virginia. It was my son UN's
(06:00):
paintball birthday party. And because it's so far away from DC,
you know, I have like pizza and salad and drinks
and snacks for the grown ups so they don't have
to drive an hour four times as opposed to just
one visit out and back. So all the adults are
just sitting there, the parents and one of the dads
(06:21):
comes over and says, oh, I know Dave Roller from
The Outpost. Dave Rollers a character in The Outpost, a
real person obviously, And I said, yeah, that book was
really tough to write for a lot of reasons, but
one of them is the military keeps such horrible records,
and whatever records they have, they just don't share them.
And he's like, tell me about it, and then he
(06:41):
proceeds to tell this story that is the story of
race against Terror. It starts on the deck of an
Italian cruise ship in the middle of the Mediterranean during
the Arab Spring. The cruise ship's been commandeered by Berlusconi,
the Prime Minister, to bring thousands of refugees from the
southern Italian islands to the mainland, and a gentleman walks
(07:05):
over to one of the Italian green berets and asks
for water. He gives him some water, notices that this guy,
he's from Niger, has a bullet wound in his arm.
He asks him how he got it. Basically, he says,
I got it fighting Americans in Afghanistan. I'm with al Qaeda.
And from there the story just goes on to this
(07:26):
incredible tale where the Americans are told about this guy
by the Italian spin Gould. They take him into custody
and they're like, the Italian's like, do you know this
guy's beIN gool And the Americans have heard of him
for sure because he was active with al Qaeda in
two thousand and two, two thousand and three, and they've
since captured a lot of guys from al Qaeda. This
(07:49):
is twenty eleven, but this is the Obama era, so
you can't take anybody to get Mo, and the Italians
are going to hand over anybody to go to Getmo.
The Americans have to prove a cake before extraditing spin Goal,
before Obama or the Justice Department will even bring him
to the shore. So there is this race to prove
a case. And it's all slothing. How do we prove
(08:12):
that this guy did what he says he did because
he said he killed Americans, he said he wanted to
blow up the US embassy in Nigeria. How do we
prove it? And the story of the Slothing was so compelling,
and I said to Dave Bitkouer, who is one of
the heroes of the book, has anyone told this story before?
It was just so good. I couldn't believe that, no one,
(08:33):
And he's like, well, people covered it when he was
brought to court, but no, not really, No, he's covered
the slothing of it all. And this is the only
instance in American history of a foreign terrorist prosecuted in
a criminal court in the United States for killing service
members on a battlefield. It's never happened before. So it's
(08:55):
this incredibly unique case, and the story was just so
compelling in every you know, I took Dave Bikhuer out
to lunch and then he introduced me to Shrieve and
then met other and like then I was interviewing service
members and it just became this incredible story, and every
person I interviewed I couldn't even believe how compelling the
story was. There's there's the human element because he did
(09:16):
kill Americans, and there's the story of the ambush and
the story of the service members who survived and the
ones who didn't. There is the and then there is
just the heart pounding race to build a case and
to get this guy locked up so he doesn't he's
he has said he wants to kill as many Americans
as possible. He thinks the embassy bombings in Tanzania and
Kenya were like the greatest achievement in terrorist history. He
(09:39):
wants to do that. So it just became this project
of love and also just a fascination because it was
just so interesting.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, it is insanely interesting, just the very all the
different characters that you kind of weave throughout the story,
and the way that you are able to tell their
story in such like a succinct yet a really in
depth way. It just makes them feel like you've you
know them, like they're almost like archetypes.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
One of the things I've learned this is my eighth book,
and one of the things I've learned, hopefully is editing,
because I love the Post, but it's about a five
hundred page book, and it's at a certain point, and
I think it's maybe through the novels that I wrote.
At a certain point, I became just much more disciplined
(10:28):
when it came to cutting and eliminating and realized and
thinking to myself, this I am at service to the reader.
I need to this needs to be for the reader,
that this is for no one else. When I wrote
the Outpost, I felt like I was writing it for
the service members, and I wanted a record of all
these people and all these stories, and so I cut
very little. And while I still feel, you know, the need,
(10:51):
the compulsion to tell the story of the service members
in this book, I also felt the need, like I
felt very clear the imperative of I want as many
people as possible to know the story, and that means
it needs to be the quickest, fastest, most interesting book possible,
and so I just need to be much more disciplined. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Well, it's really an art form in and of itself,
so I just wanted to applaud you on that.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
When you started researching the story, was there a specific
moment where you realized this was becoming, you know, something
really in depth, like a book, where is becoming a
massive project?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Oh? Immediately it was a book.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Immediately, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
As soon as I as soon as Shrieve and Bitcower,
who are two of the main characters, as soon as
we went to lunch, and they told me all of
these things that I had not explored, all these different characters,
Rashana Muhammad from the FBI, and this guy Dave Hodgson
from the US Army Investigative Unit, and all these different
(11:52):
people and all and just the fascinating way that they
built this case. And look, I'm no different from anybody else.
I love a good police procedural. I love to know,
Like I loved CSI like, how do how do you
prove the case? I love you know, Law and Order
and NCIS and all these shows. I love that stuff.
(12:14):
It's really interesting to me how do you prove it?
And you know that's part of obviously being a journalist too,
but these prosecutors, that just the way they told the story,
it was just so interesting because, uh, it wasn't enough
that Spinal had confessed. Any defense attorney would be able
to say, this is just some crazy guy. You have
no proof he did any of this. You can't even
(12:35):
tell me the date of the ambush he says he
was he participated in. They had to prove it. They
had to have physical evidence or witness testimony for every
part of the story, and they did such an incredible job.
And once once I got my hands on the case
files from one of the prosecutors, Matt Jacobs, I was
(12:57):
just like, this is going to be a great boke.
And also one of the one of the things about
it is even though spin Gul would not cooperate with me.
He's in prison. People will be happy to hear, but
he would not cooperate. His story is in the book,
Like he is a character in the book. He's not
just some nameless, faceless terrorist. He is a real person
whose story whose tale from you know, poverty in Saudi
(13:20):
Arabia all the way to trying to kill Americans in
Nigeria and also in Afghanistan is told. I mean, obviously
I'm not sympathetic, but it is a real story of
a real man. And that's also that also was a
gift when it came to telling this story because very
seldom do you get the full biography of one of
(13:41):
these terrorists, from radicalization to arrest. It's very seldom do
you hear the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, on my podcast, I typically cover you know, true crime,
mystery stuff like that. And so when you do learn
about a suspect, for me, you know, the most interesting
part of true crime is trying to figure out why
they did what they did, you know, what motivated them
to commit such a crime. And like you said, in
this book, you don't really sympathize with Spinoul, but you
do understand, you know, the path he was put on
(14:11):
and how he got there, and even you know, by
the end, by the time that he's encountering the prosecutors
and all the other individuals involved, you realize that he's
likely been sitting in this Libyan prison for five six years.
And yeah, you know, he's just it.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
He was.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Not to understand.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Him, Yeah, I mean, I think he was obviously a
religious zealot with all that that entails with anybody that
goes into terrorism. But also I think it's fair to
say he you know, he had been arrested by the
Kadafi regime in two thousand and three, and uh and
uh you know, I'm I'm tortured for years. And I'm
sure that mu that must have played a horrific role
(14:50):
in his life. I don't again, I don't have a
tremendous sympathy for him, but but that that also helps
explain why when he got out during the Arab Spring,
when Kadafi was empty emptying the prisons and sending Jihati
extremists to Europe because he wanted them, you know, to
oh you don't like me, okay, fine, this is because
(15:10):
you know, people like Kadafi they thought that they were
containing extremism and radicalization in Libya, and to a degree,
he and Mubarak and other Arab strongmen do do that
with you know, horrific human rights abuses, but they do
do that. And anyway, he gets out and he just
he's so eager to talk about who he is and
(15:31):
what he's done, and you know, he's proud of his
career as a terrorist. He thinks it's the greatest thing
in the world. Dave Bitkouer, the prosecutor who told me
the story to begin with, when he was at Yale,
he got to interview Ron Darling, who was who went
He was a Yale pitcher and then went on to
play for the Mets and was in the World Series
winning Mets, and Dave interviewed him about a no hitter
(15:56):
he had pitched at Yale, and you'd think, you know,
the guy went on to win the World Series. Who
cares about a no hitter in an IVY League school.
But he knew every detail, knew every detail. And Todave
spin Goul was like that, like he thought of himself
as telling the day of his greatest game, like he
just remembered every detail of it.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah, and that's like so not impressive, but you know
the fact that he gave this testimony to prosecutors in Italy,
I believe, Yeah, and he was able to recall it.
What was it like, almost ten years after the fact.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, was an eleven and the attack was two thousand
and three.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, yeah, So eight years later and he's recalling all
these minute details that during his prosecution ended up. You know,
they connected it with the available evidence.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
That's just yeah, because none of the soldiers testified that
they remembered him per se. You don't see a lot
of the people that are trying to kill you in
a battle, but they all had the same memory of
the ambush. And that was one of the things that
Melody Well was one of the prosecutors, and it's part
of the story when she does her closing. One of
(17:05):
her skills, one of her talents was to tell the
story of the attack from spin Gul's perspective, as verified
by his victims. And you'll remember then he said this
about the helicopters, and these service members remember that. And
you'll say he remembered this about the death of one
(17:26):
of his fellow al Qaeda operatives, and you'll remember these
guys said that too, and she was able to tell
the story and weave in witness testimony, physical evidence, and
it was just such a fascinating tale honestly, Like, I
feel like the story itself is I'm glad you like
the way I wrote it, and I'm honored and flattered.
But the story is just so good forgetting me forget
(17:49):
the book. The story is just so incredible. When I
heard it, I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
When I learned about how the you know, the prosecutors
and all the investigators involved were able to piece together
this evidence from a crime scene or I guess a battle,
you know, yeah, yeah, and you know they investigated it
just like they would a crime scene. You know, they
took the evidence, and uh, I believe it was Was
it the DOMEX system.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I was used to catalog all the you know, the
papers and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
And yeah, it is the DOMAC system, which is like
if you if you picture the end of Raiders of
the Lost Ark, the giant warehouse with every crate ever, like,
that is what the DOMAC system is. It's it's just
the documentation of everything having to do with terrorists or battles. Uh.
And to traverse that they had a guy, a guide almost,
(18:38):
a guy named Dave Hodgson who knew where ever, he
knew where everything was. But also there were there was
evidence of photographs from the battle scene, and they couldn't
find things. They didn't know where they lived anymore. So
then the prosecutors and the FBI agents and thus and
such had to go and talk to the service members.
(18:59):
Does anybody know where this is? Like a koran? Does
anybody know where this is? It's a notebook, you know,
and they had to track it down, and you know,
that's when you get into service. The service member's story,
there's a lot of the story of the ambush is
a big part of the book also because that's the
actual crime. But then also the service members, some of
them took back some things from the battlefield, as you knows,
(19:20):
as trophies or just remembrances of their battlefield, and like
the prosecutors had to figure out where they all were.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
One of the most intriguing notes is the you know,
the near the end of the book, during the trial,
you find out about there's a koran that has specific
physical evidence linking spin Gooole to the scene, and it's
just like that's exactly out of an episode of CSI.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Totally and the woman the woman who finds it. So
this I mean that one of this was one of
the great joys of writing this book is so many
of the characters are characters that you would if you
wrote this as a Hollywood screenplay, you would say, Okay,
we're going to have one of the FBI agents be
an African American woman from bal More who's Muslim, and
like you know, in the writer's room, they might be
(20:03):
come on, that's a little march. No, it's real. It's
a Rashana Muhammad, one of the heroes of the book.
That's who she is because to her, this is not
Islam al Qaida. This is a perversion of her faith.
And then the woman at Quantico, the fingerprint expert, is
this woman with dyed red hair, tats all over her body,
a nose ring again like a character from CSI or from.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
A cold case, yes or something.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
What's the other one? It was a really intense one
with Joe Montagna, uh and really dark. Mandy Patinkin was
in it. Anyway, there was another one of these proceivs,
criminal minds. That's it. This woman is from criminal minds
and you know, and and also she was I mean
just in terms of life imitating alread imitating life. She
was inspired to go into detective work like this by
(20:52):
watching an episode of Crossing Jordan because she was originally
going to be a veterinarian. Then she filled in at
the vets office and it was just two pain full
to have to put cats and dogs down. She hated it,
and her mom's like, we're what they're watching Crossing Jordan
one night. You should? You should? You could do this
and show. She goes to West Virginia University, becomes an
expert in fingerprints, goes to Quantico, and like is a
(21:13):
key member of the team that helps lock away this
al Qaeda terrorist.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, it's so amazing, just all these different, like you know,
story threads that lead to this culmination. It's just the
fact that the story is woven over two decades pretty much.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, from two thousand and three to the I guess
two thousand and eighteen is when the verdict coment comes down.
But Daniel today, whether or not they know it, the
Trump administration is going to go forward with trying to
criminally prosecute a terrorist for killing service members abroad some
of one of the conspirators behind the Abbey Gate bombing
(21:49):
in twenty twenty one, and they're going to do that
in Virginia. They're doing it right now at the you know,
at the time. And we get into the political wins
in the book at the time in twenty two one,
I'm sorry, twenty eleven and twenty twelve, incredibly controversial to
try to try a terrorist in a criminal court as
opposed to sending him to Gitmo or go doing a
(22:11):
military commission. But now Trump's going to do it too,
And I bet he doesn't even know he's following in
Obama's footsteps.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
It's a really interesting kind of like through line through
the story is that you establish how when Obama became president,
he established you know, no, we're closing Gitmo.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
It's going to be done.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And obviously there were a lot of roadblocks to doing that.
Oh yeah, and that's still open, yeah, still open today.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah. But one of the other things though, is that
Obama wanted to prosecute terrorists in criminal courts, and he
faced a lot of headwinds not just from Republicans but
from Democrats too. But even if he hadn't wanted to
do that. The Italians would not have turned over spin
Ghoul in twenty eleven to the Americans for prosecution at
Gitmo or in a military tribunal, or if the death
(23:01):
penalty was on the table, because by twenty eleven Europe
had so revulsed at the American Global War on Terror
and how Bush had had conducted it, and even Obama
to an extent when it comes to the drone campaign,
they were, you know, they were only going to help
if if certain things were done in certain ways. So
even if Obama had not said we're going to do
(23:23):
this in a criminal court, the Italians would have insisted
on it, and then maybe spinal would have been freed
and we all in his goal and his life's goal
was to kill Americans and he I'm sure he would
have succeeded.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
M Yeah, it's really interesting. That's how the you know,
kind of like the namesake of the book comes in,
because American prosecutors are trying to make this case to
an Italian court that basically says, yeah, we're going to
charge him in a criminal court, but we don't want
to execute him. We don't want to send him to Gitmo.
So it's kind of like, you know, the middle part
of this book is almost a procedural.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah, well, they have to prove they have to prove
the case before the Italians. They have to they have
to prove the case to a degree before the Italians
will turn him over. And the Italians at the end
of the day, he didn't do anything to the Italians.
The Italians can't prosecute him for killing Americans, and so
(24:21):
the Italians would send him to a refugee camp and
those are low security. If no security, I mean, he
would have easily just like walked over the bush and
gone and killed Americans at a Starbucks. I mean, it
just it would have happened. That was his goal. So
they had to they had to race to build a case,
and then they had to build the case to convict
(24:42):
him or else, who knows what would happen. One of
the trials that happens during all of this, there's a
guy being tried for the embassy bombings, a guy named Gillani.
He was being tried in a criminal court for terrorists,
not not for killing soldiers on a battlefield, but for
killing American civilians and African civilians. And he almost gets
(25:03):
acquitted because the evidence is tainted by torture. The judge
throws out the key witness, and Gallani is acquitted of
two hundred and eighty four out of two hundred and
eighty five charges, And all the politicians and people in
the national security world are watching and saying, oh my god, like,
this guy almost got acquitted, and then he would have
(25:27):
just like, what would have happened to him? What do
you just beset free in Brooklyn, set free in Manhattan.
We can't have that happen. And so there was a
real fear of even bringing spring Gole to the United
States what that might mean.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yeah, one of the aspects of the book that I
really like is this, Uh, I don't know if it
was intentional or not, but it almost seems like this
theme of how, you know, prosecutors want to try and
you know, build a legal framework for trying terrorist in
American courts, and how difficult that is because when you
think about something like Nuremberg, where we are trying international
(26:03):
war criminals and almost like this international coalition of a court,
how that was very different and trying to try terrorists
in the US criminal court is it's such a novel thing.
Like it hadn't been tried before and hasn't really been
tried since until just now, Like you're saying with Trump.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
So Nuremberg, I mean the fascinating parallel with that is like,
you know, that was obviously a state actor Germany, Nazi Germany,
and the Nazis kept meticulous records of everything, and al
Qaeda is not that they're not affiliated with a specific
state and they don't keep great records intentionally or unintentionally.
(26:43):
You know, they're just so there's so much subterfuge because
they operate in the dark, because they're committing acts of terrorism,
not you know, genocide through camps set up by the state,
et cetera. So it's completely different. And the debate over
which is the best way to to go after terrorists,
is it military commissions or is it criminal courts, I
(27:07):
feel like it's pretty much been answered by just the
success of the criminal courts. The criminal court system has
locked up hundreds of terrorists, and the military commissions because
it's still so new and the law is so fresh
and debated, and also because so much of the evidence
is so tainted because of the torture, that the criminal
(27:29):
courts have really just won the argument based on the merits.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah, and it seems like it's becoming almost like this
moral question because now you have the US government going
after these terrorists in Venezuela, you know, use to just
kill them extra judicially, and it just seems like this
type of story is more I don't know, needed, than
ever a different moral outcome.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
It's interesting that you raise that because I because I
covered that earlier this week my CNN show. And the
idea of what President Trump is trying to do is
really fascinating and I guess, depending on your political and
legal point of view, either great or disgusting. But what
he's trying to do is take the model that US
presidents since Bush including Obama, have created, which is, we
(28:21):
have the right to protect the American people from terrorists
who want to kill us. Therefore, we assert this right
to you know, kill people in Yemen with drones if
we want to. And Trump is Trump in February declared
trend de Aragua, this Venezuelan cartel, drug cartel, a terrorist group.
(28:44):
Just on his own, he did that, which he can do,
and then is saying because they kill Americans through drugs,
through the drugs, that they sell to the United States,
we have the right to kill them extra judicially, as
you note, by striking their ships. And this Congress does
(29:06):
not really have the appetite to challenge anything President Trump does.
But it is an interesting debate because I don't know
that a court would uphold that. I don't know if
anybody's going to challenge it. But I mean, certainly Americans
dying by drugs is horrible, and certainly I shed no
tear for any member of Trende Aragua who gets killed.
(29:29):
But is it the same thing is selling drugs in
the United States and those drugs kill people? Is that
the same thing as nine to eleven? I don't know
that it is, And so I mean, I think it's
I think it's at the very least. I think it's
an interesting debate and an interesting discussion about the need
to have rules and also just debates about these topics.
(29:53):
And most world leaders, as Trump is no exception, don't
want any discussion or debate over anything doing. But I
do think that you take this conversation in an interesting
place because of the assertion of these powers when it
comes to when it comes to drug cartels.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, and it's I am just like, after reading this book,
I'm reminded that, you know, there is a better way
to go about things that you know, we reread in
this book that the US government was able to successfully
build a case against spin Gooul and convict him any
US criminal court. Yeah, and it is just reminding me
(30:32):
and hopefully many of the readers out there that you know,
this was a very successful outcome, and we could see
other successful outcomes like this in the future if we
proceed to go down this route.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Although the judge, right, Judge Cogan at the end of
the book, even though he you know, he supervises the
successful prosecution, and I think as a compelling character, he
doesn't understand why they did it at all. You know.
His view is like Obama is the president, he can
set any rules he wants. Why are we doing this?
This is so stupid? Are we doing this? He basically
(31:03):
thought that the entire trial was just to demonstrate what
you're talking about, Like, look, we're the Americans. We have
these great ideals and we can fulfill them. And he
thought it was kind of stupid, like why are you
doing this? He's obviously guilty. Lock them up, like you
don't have to send him to a super max in Colorado.
We have gon Guantanamo. Like you're the president, you can
(31:24):
make up any rule you want, which is an interesting
I thought that was like so many times I would
be interviewing people for the book, they would say something
that surprised me. And when Judge Cogan said that to
me when I interviewed him, I thought it was fascinating
because you know, he supervised this demonstration of our ideals
and he thought it was kind of a waste of time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yeah, it's an interesting moral dilemma, and it's just like
one that's proposed by the book One of Many. And
you know, I just wanted to ask you mentioned that
that was a very surprising thing from Judge Cogan. What
was the most surprising thing you found out while researching
this book.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
The two that stick with me the most are opposite
sides of humanity. One of them is Doc Simmons is
a character who is in at Fire Based Skin in
two thousand and three. He's the medic and he's also
a man of deep religious faith, deep Christian faith, and
(32:22):
he has on his kit an illustration of Jesus. I
think washing the feet of No No Jesus and the Romans,
and Jesus forgiving his persecutors, and it's a reminder to
him of the humanity of all of us, even our enemies.
Here's Jesus with the Romans, and if Jesus can find
(32:43):
it in him to forgive the Romans, I am here
to be a physician for everybody. And he goes into
battle thinking that like that, I will help Afghans, I
will help all Kaida, I will help the Taliban, I
will help insurgents. I will help my men first and foremost,
but I will help anybody. And after the ambush his
heart is so changed. He rips that illustration, he rips
(33:04):
the picture off his kit. That was such a powerful
moment to me that he went through that crisis. And
then conversely, the brother of one of the two men
that Spingoul is convicted of killing, Renley Dennis, the brother
of Jared Dennis who was killed at Firebashkin. Renley Dennis
(33:27):
reads a book called You Cannot Have My Hate. The
book is written by a Frenchman whose wife was killed
when Isis attacked the Botoclon nightclub in Paris, and it's
basically saying the book basically says, you took my wife,
but I'm not gonna obsess about you. I'm not going
(33:48):
to devote my life to hating you. You cannot have
my hate. And Renley basically is inspired when it's time
for the victim's impact statements during sentencing to forgive spin
Goal and say, my brother Jared, he would have wanted
me to forgive you. He would have like, yeah, and
(34:09):
you're I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here hating you.
I'm gonna forgive you. I feel bad for you. I'm
going to forgive you. And and it is so moving
and so powerful that Judge Cogan has to go into
his chambers to collect himself before sentencing spin Gol. So
those two moments were the most those are the ones
that stay with me. But honestly, the book is and
(34:30):
again this isn't because of me. I just happened upon
the story. The book is so full of so many
incredible Americans and incredible characters and with their own stories
and their own fears and hopes and dreams. It was
really just such a such a I mean, there's a
lot of work writing the book, but it was such
a pleasure writing it and telling these people's stories.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
I think of all the stories that you told throughout
the book, I think the one that stuck with me
the most was probably you know, the anecdote about Renley
near the end with that, and you know, just when
you introduce his brother Jared Dennis earlier in the book.
It was one of those when you introduced him, I
started immediately in my mind, I'm like, there's no way
this part of the story ends.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Well, but yeah, that is. That is I mean, that's
a tell.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I know.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
I know, as soon as you say it's like in
the war movie, as soon as somebody's talking about how
much he misses his wife, You're like, oh god.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
But it was funny because I grew up so I
was eleven years old when September eleventh happened. So you know,
when I was eighteen coming of age, that was when
the War on Terror was still pretty much at its fullest.
You know, Iraq and Afghanistan we're both raging. And I
had a lot of friends who were graduating from high
school or you know, didn't graduate from high school that
joined the military.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
You know, Jared Dennis who barely graduated.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, yep, and some of them you know, I just
saw so many of my friends in him, you know, yeah,
barely graduating, you know, enjoying chasing girls and smoking weed
more than reading books.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Class clown. Everybody loves him, kind of a goof off,
almost doesn't graduate. His mom, his mama gets involved. Kid
like a native Native American from Oklahoma. Great kid, everybody
loved him, kind of a goof almost gets almost gets
kicked out of the military for a hot hot piss
(36:22):
for drug test that goes bad but ends up you know,
being one of the best soldiers in the unit, a
private gardenas who you know, who dies in action, who
volunteers to go out into the ambush and try to
help his fellow soldiers. Same thing with Ray Losano, an American,
(36:44):
great guy, Latino wife, two kids at home or I
think he had pregnant wife at home and a daughter.
And he was you know, he was married to his wife, Sarah,
and he was like the working at the front desk
of the motel, sick, making no money, and the Air
Force just seemed like a better option for him, and
(37:04):
he and Jared enlisted before nine to eleven, before you know,
back when it seemed like a low risk professional option.
I mean, people forget the nineties, but that's what it
was like. There was you know, there were a lot
of people who served in the ninety nineties who never
saw a lack of action and there and there was
(37:25):
no risk. I mean there was, there was. There were
wars during that period. There was Panama, there was Yugoslavia,
but still nothing that the US was directly involved in
for a long, long period of time. And then all
of a sudden they did enlisted, and all of a
sudden we were at war with al Qaida, and you know,
they were thrust into harm's way.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
That's funny you mentioned the nineties. Both my in laws
were Air Force in the late eighties, and it was
right before the Goal War. That was when the military
did the big like, you know, we're going to try
and let everyone go, give them signing bonuses, and then two.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Years later Goal forar.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Right, So it's just like we forget how the military
was seen as this almost like a safe option.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Yeah. No, I graduated from college in ninety one and
the military was never even something I thought about because
it wasn't like other than the Gulf War, which was
a very short war, and it was not we were
not attacked. Kuwait was attacked, and it was an exertion
(38:24):
of force against Saddam Hussein. But it was a very
quick war. Americans were killed in it, and I don't
mean to say it wasn't a big deal, but it
wasn't what Iraq later became or Afghanistan later became. Anyway,
It just like it was great and heroic that people
were joining the military. But it was just a different
vibe because it wasn't. The idea that you weren't going
(38:47):
to make it out was a remote and I don't
think anybody in the time in the eighties, very few
people probably thought that way. I certainly didn't anyone. I'll
speak for myself. It's just like the idea like we
hadn't been involved in very serious war since since Vietnam.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, just crazy to think about how
times have changed.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
But it's very different today. It's very different today.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Yeah, But you know, we got a few minutes left.
I just wanted to applaud you on the great book.
It's a very compelling, very cinematic. Do you want to
leave the listeners with any thoughts before we get going.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
No, I mean, it's just one of the things that
was just fun about writing this book is like, you know,
I write fiction too, but nonfiction, it's just it's more
in my blood, just because the true stories of what
people go through. And in this book there's so many
great Americans represented. The whole American mosaic is represented in
this book. You know, every race and religion and background
(39:44):
is there. And I just thought it was just when
Dave Bitkower told me the story, I'm like, this is
the greatest yarn I've heard a long long time. And
I just if I bring even half of that to
the book that I'm honored. And I hope people enjoy it. Well.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I think they will. I think it's going to be
a great book. And I appreciate your time. Thank you
so much for chatting with me.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Thank you, it was real honor.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, hopefully we have to chat again soon with your
next book.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Okay, I haven't started that oning it, so give me
a little.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Time, take a well deserved break.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Okay, thanks Michael, I appreciate it. Yes, say thank you,
bye bye, you.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Care bye bye.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I want to give another special thanks to Jake Tapper
for joining us on the show. It was an honor
to chat with him, and honestly, he could not have
been a nicer guy to talk to.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
As you could.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Probably tell, I was pretty excited and maybe a little
overcaffeinated during our chat. But please go and check out
his new book, Race Against Terror from Atria Books wherever
you can find it. I honestly had a hard time
putting it down. It's a gripping story and Jake did
a great job writing it.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Go check it out.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Lastly, before go, I want to give another quick thank
you to everyone listening. It's really truly hard to believe
that it's been ten years since this show got started.
When I uploaded the first episode of Unresolved, I was
a middle school librarian in my mid twenties with a
little too much free time at my disposal, who had
dabbled in journalism back in college and always had an
interest in true crime. When I uploaded the first episode
(41:21):
of the original night Stalker series, I did not expect
anyone to listen, but a ton of you did, and
you not only gave me good constructive criticism, you complimented
and encouraged me to keep going. I'm so glad that
I did. I'm not gonna lie. There have been times
over the last decade that I thought maybe enough's enough,
Maybe it's time we wrap up the show. When I
had kids, when things in my own life just got
(41:43):
a little too overwhelming, during my half dozen or so
cross country moves. Seriously, I'm just about done with those.
But I'm so happy that I still have the show.
It's become a constant in my life over the last
ten years, and I don't think I would give it
up for anything. Now that I look back on the
last decade, I wonder where the next ten years will
take us. Hopefully I'll get to release another special episode
(42:04):
on October seventh, twenty thirty five, which, holy shit, does
not seem like a real year. Anyhow, until next time,
I hope you all stay safe and stay healthy. I
will talk to you all later.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Bye.
Hey everyone, it's Michael. Today's episode of the podcast is
a very special one. Not only is it an interview
episode with a special guest who will intro in just
a minute or so, but it happens to come out
on a big anniversary. The day this episode comes out,
October seventh, twenty twenty five, happens to be ten years
to the day that I uploaded the very first episode
of Unresolved. A lot has changed since then, not only
(00:23):
for me personally, but I'm sure for all of you listening,
and I wanted to take a moment to say thank
you to everyone for coming along for the ride. So
to all of you out there listening, Yeah, you there
right now with the face, thank you for listening to
and supporting Unresolved in your own special way. It truly
means the world to me, and honestly, again, from the
bottom of my heart, thank you for helping make this
(00:44):
show what it is. On today's episode of Unresolved, we
are joined by very special guest, Jake Pepper. You may
know him as one of America's most recognizable newsmen. He
has been the host of CNN's The Lead with Jake
Tapper since twenty thirteen. And one of the co hosts
of State of the Union. Since twenty fifteen, he's moderated
(01:07):
presidential debates, served as a senior White House correspondent for
ABC News, and received numerous accolades for his reporting and
writing over the years. Today, Jake joined me to talk
about his new book, which is coming out to day.
This episode comes out October seventh. It is called Race
Against Terror, and it is an incredible read. The book
opens with a moment that sounds almost too strange to
(01:29):
be true. On a ship packed with migrants crossing the Mediterranean,
a small, nervous man pulls aside an Italian officer and
calmly says he's not a refugee, He's a fighter. He
says he's with al Qaeda. That man's name is ed
Non Ibrahim Haroun, though he goes by a chilling alias
spin Ghoul, also known as the White Rose. What follows
(01:50):
is the unbelievable story of how this self proclaimed gihawtist
captured after a US ambush in Afghanistan and lost years
of chaos and prison transfers, only reappears on a crowded
refugee ship bound for Europe. Tapper follows the thread from
that chance encounter all the way to Brooklyn, where a
team of FBI agents and prosecutors work for years to
(02:11):
bring Spingoul to justice. The case winds through black sites,
diplomatic standoffs, and an American courtroom that must decide how
to try a man who fought on a battlefield, not
a city street. It's a legal and moral puzzle, one
that forces everyone involved to confront where the line between
soldier and terrorist, between vengeance and justice really lies. But
(02:32):
the story's heart isn't just in that courtroom. Jake Tapper
intertwines it with the family of an American soldier killed
in spin Goool's ambush, and how his loved ones struggle
to make sense of a loss that rippled across continents.
By the end, the book becomes about far more than
just one act of terror. It's about the cost of
the endless war that followed nine to eleven, about grief
(02:53):
that refuses to curdle into hate, and about what it
takes to hold onto your humanity in the face of
the worst that humanity can. Now. With all that being said,
here's my conversation with Jake Tapper, So thank you for
(03:16):
taking the time chat with me going so far.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's good, you know. I'm I'm I'm fifty six. So
i go to the gym and I'm so proud of myself.
It's really ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
That's something to be proud of.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And I'm like walking around, I'm like, yeah, actually, my
body is actually functioning today. I'm not. I don't feel
like I'm about to fall into a coffin.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
All right, I'm right there with you. I'm thirty five.
I have a six month old son. So if I
could get in in the stroller and go for a
walk in the morning.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, you're exhausted. That's that's what you're going through. That's
a whole different thing. You're exhausted. They got the best
compliment of my life about this book from a new
mom who was telling me that she was on a
plane to LA You couldn't put the book down even
though she was so exhausted from having babies. And I
was like, oh my god, that's the greatest compliment in
(04:06):
the world. Souse. I know, I know that exhaustion.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
That's exactly how I feel too.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah. No, they do sleep, they do sleep, I promise.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I've got a four year old and things were starting
to normalize again. She was about three when we found
out that we were pregnant with the second. I was like, oh,
there goes free time again.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, it's good though, it's good. And then they get
older and then they go to sleep at seven or
eight and you're like, oh wow, all this free time.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah, but it's funny.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I was in like the same boat because I've been
trying to read for you know, like two three months now,
and it's just trying to keep the attention span is
so hard. But reading this book, it was like, it's
a fast paced, like thriller with all these different twists,
and it was really cool.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Thank you. Yeah, well that was the goal, is to
write it like a thriller.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
It feels very cinematic. I don't know if that's what
you're going for, but it feels that way.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well, I mean the story just is that way. So yeah,
I mean I tried to. I leaned into it as
much as I could, Okay, but I mean.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, nice, Well, you know, getting started, I'll record like
a little forward to put on this episode to kind
of like catch listeners up with what the story is.
But would you mind touching upon how you learned about
this story and what made you want to write a
book about it?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
You want me to do that right now, or you
want to do it like for sure, yeah, whenever you're
it's a It's just a very simple story. Really. So
I wrote a book called The Outpost about a bass
in Afghanistan that was that was doomed. I wrote that.
It came out in twenty twelve, and it was a
very meaningful experience to me. And then I didn't want
(05:40):
to just follow it up with any other nonfiction book.
I wanted to feel as dedicated and devoted to whatever
my next nonfiction project was as I was to The Outpost.
And so years past and I wrote a few novels,
and then one day in October twenty twenty two, I
was out in rural Virginia. It was my son UN's
(06:00):
paintball birthday party. And because it's so far away from DC,
you know, I have like pizza and salad and drinks
and snacks for the grown ups so they don't have
to drive an hour four times as opposed to just
one visit out and back. So all the adults are
just sitting there, the parents and one of the dads
(06:21):
comes over and says, oh, I know Dave Roller from
The Outpost. Dave Rollers a character in The Outpost, a
real person obviously, And I said, yeah, that book was
really tough to write for a lot of reasons, but
one of them is the military keeps such horrible records,
and whatever records they have, they just don't share them.
And he's like, tell me about it, and then he
(06:41):
proceeds to tell this story that is the story of
race against Terror. It starts on the deck of an
Italian cruise ship in the middle of the Mediterranean during
the Arab Spring. The cruise ship's been commandeered by Berlusconi,
the Prime Minister, to bring thousands of refugees from the
southern Italian islands to the mainland, and a gentleman walks
(07:05):
over to one of the Italian green berets and asks
for water. He gives him some water, notices that this guy,
he's from Niger, has a bullet wound in his arm.
He asks him how he got it. Basically, he says,
I got it fighting Americans in Afghanistan. I'm with al Qaeda.
And from there the story just goes on to this
(07:26):
incredible tale where the Americans are told about this guy
by the Italian spin Gould. They take him into custody
and they're like, the Italian's like, do you know this
guy's beIN gool And the Americans have heard of him
for sure because he was active with al Qaeda in
two thousand and two, two thousand and three, and they've
since captured a lot of guys from al Qaeda. This
(07:49):
is twenty eleven, but this is the Obama era, so
you can't take anybody to get Mo, and the Italians
are going to hand over anybody to go to Getmo.
The Americans have to prove a cake before extraditing spin Goal,
before Obama or the Justice Department will even bring him
to the shore. So there is this race to prove
a case. And it's all slothing. How do we prove
(08:12):
that this guy did what he says he did because
he said he killed Americans, he said he wanted to
blow up the US embassy in Nigeria. How do we
prove it? And the story of the Slothing was so compelling,
and I said to Dave Bitkouer, who is one of
the heroes of the book, has anyone told this story before?
It was just so good. I couldn't believe that, no one,
(08:33):
And he's like, well, people covered it when he was
brought to court, but no, not really, No, he's covered
the slothing of it all. And this is the only
instance in American history of a foreign terrorist prosecuted in
a criminal court in the United States for killing service
members on a battlefield. It's never happened before. So it's
(08:55):
this incredibly unique case, and the story was just so
compelling in every you know, I took Dave Bikhuer out
to lunch and then he introduced me to Shrieve and
then met other and like then I was interviewing service
members and it just became this incredible story, and every
person I interviewed I couldn't even believe how compelling the
story was. There's there's the human element because he did
(09:16):
kill Americans, and there's the story of the ambush and
the story of the service members who survived and the
ones who didn't. There is the and then there is
just the heart pounding race to build a case and
to get this guy locked up so he doesn't he's
he has said he wants to kill as many Americans
as possible. He thinks the embassy bombings in Tanzania and
Kenya were like the greatest achievement in terrorist history. He
(09:39):
wants to do that. So it just became this project
of love and also just a fascination because it was
just so interesting.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, it is insanely interesting, just the very all the
different characters that you kind of weave throughout the story,
and the way that you are able to tell their
story in such like a succinct yet a really in
depth way. It just makes them feel like you've you
know them, like they're almost like archetypes.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
One of the things I've learned this is my eighth book,
and one of the things I've learned, hopefully is editing,
because I love the Post, but it's about a five
hundred page book, and it's at a certain point, and
I think it's maybe through the novels that I wrote.
At a certain point, I became just much more disciplined
(10:28):
when it came to cutting and eliminating and realized and
thinking to myself, this I am at service to the reader.
I need to this needs to be for the reader,
that this is for no one else. When I wrote
the Outpost, I felt like I was writing it for
the service members, and I wanted a record of all
these people and all these stories, and so I cut
very little. And while I still feel, you know, the need,
(10:51):
the compulsion to tell the story of the service members
in this book, I also felt the need, like I
felt very clear the imperative of I want as many
people as possible to know the story, and that means
it needs to be the quickest, fastest, most interesting book possible,
and so I just need to be much more disciplined. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Well, it's really an art form in and of itself,
so I just wanted to applaud you on that.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
When you started researching the story, was there a specific
moment where you realized this was becoming, you know, something
really in depth, like a book, where is becoming a
massive project?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Oh? Immediately it was a book.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Immediately, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
As soon as I as soon as Shrieve and Bitcower,
who are two of the main characters, as soon as
we went to lunch, and they told me all of
these things that I had not explored, all these different characters,
Rashana Muhammad from the FBI, and this guy Dave Hodgson
from the US Army Investigative Unit, and all these different
(11:52):
people and all and just the fascinating way that they
built this case. And look, I'm no different from anybody else.
I love a good police procedural. I love to know,
Like I loved CSI like, how do how do you
prove the case? I love you know, Law and Order
and NCIS and all these shows. I love that stuff.
(12:14):
It's really interesting to me how do you prove it?
And you know that's part of obviously being a journalist too,
but these prosecutors, that just the way they told the story,
it was just so interesting because, uh, it wasn't enough
that Spinal had confessed. Any defense attorney would be able
to say, this is just some crazy guy. You have
no proof he did any of this. You can't even
(12:35):
tell me the date of the ambush he says he
was he participated in. They had to prove it. They
had to have physical evidence or witness testimony for every
part of the story, and they did such an incredible job.
And once once I got my hands on the case
files from one of the prosecutors, Matt Jacobs, I was
(12:57):
just like, this is going to be a great boke.
And also one of the one of the things about
it is even though spin Gul would not cooperate with me.
He's in prison. People will be happy to hear, but
he would not cooperate. His story is in the book,
Like he is a character in the book. He's not
just some nameless, faceless terrorist. He is a real person
whose story whose tale from you know, poverty in Saudi
(13:20):
Arabia all the way to trying to kill Americans in
Nigeria and also in Afghanistan is told. I mean, obviously
I'm not sympathetic, but it is a real story of
a real man. And that's also that also was a
gift when it came to telling this story because very
seldom do you get the full biography of one of
(13:41):
these terrorists, from radicalization to arrest. It's very seldom do
you hear the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, on my podcast, I typically cover you know, true crime,
mystery stuff like that. And so when you do learn
about a suspect, for me, you know, the most interesting
part of true crime is trying to figure out why
they did what they did, you know, what motivated them
to commit such a crime. And like you said, in
this book, you don't really sympathize with Spinoul, but you
do understand, you know, the path he was put on
(14:11):
and how he got there, and even you know, by
the end, by the time that he's encountering the prosecutors
and all the other individuals involved, you realize that he's
likely been sitting in this Libyan prison for five six years.
And yeah, you know, he's just it.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
He was.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Not to understand.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Him, Yeah, I mean, I think he was obviously a
religious zealot with all that that entails with anybody that
goes into terrorism. But also I think it's fair to
say he you know, he had been arrested by the
Kadafi regime in two thousand and three, and uh and
uh you know, I'm I'm tortured for years. And I'm
sure that mu that must have played a horrific role
(14:50):
in his life. I don't again, I don't have a
tremendous sympathy for him, but but that that also helps
explain why when he got out during the Arab Spring,
when Kadafi was empty emptying the prisons and sending Jihati
extremists to Europe because he wanted them, you know, to
oh you don't like me, okay, fine, this is because
(15:10):
you know, people like Kadafi they thought that they were
containing extremism and radicalization in Libya, and to a degree,
he and Mubarak and other Arab strongmen do do that
with you know, horrific human rights abuses, but they do
do that. And anyway, he gets out and he just
he's so eager to talk about who he is and
(15:31):
what he's done, and you know, he's proud of his
career as a terrorist. He thinks it's the greatest thing
in the world. Dave Bitkouer, the prosecutor who told me
the story to begin with, when he was at Yale,
he got to interview Ron Darling, who was who went
He was a Yale pitcher and then went on to
play for the Mets and was in the World Series
winning Mets, and Dave interviewed him about a no hitter
(15:56):
he had pitched at Yale, and you'd think, you know,
the guy went on to win the World Series. Who
cares about a no hitter in an IVY League school.
But he knew every detail, knew every detail. And Todave
spin Goul was like that, like he thought of himself
as telling the day of his greatest game, like he
just remembered every detail of it.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah, and that's like so not impressive, but you know
the fact that he gave this testimony to prosecutors in Italy,
I believe, Yeah, and he was able to recall it.
What was it like, almost ten years after the fact.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, was an eleven and the attack was two thousand
and three.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, yeah, So eight years later and he's recalling all
these minute details that during his prosecution ended up. You know,
they connected it with the available evidence.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
That's just yeah, because none of the soldiers testified that
they remembered him per se. You don't see a lot
of the people that are trying to kill you in
a battle, but they all had the same memory of
the ambush. And that was one of the things that
Melody Well was one of the prosecutors, and it's part
of the story when she does her closing. One of
(17:05):
her skills, one of her talents was to tell the
story of the attack from spin Gul's perspective, as verified
by his victims. And you'll remember then he said this
about the helicopters, and these service members remember that. And
you'll say he remembered this about the death of one
(17:26):
of his fellow al Qaeda operatives, and you'll remember these
guys said that too, and she was able to tell
the story and weave in witness testimony, physical evidence, and
it was just such a fascinating tale honestly, Like, I
feel like the story itself is I'm glad you like
the way I wrote it, and I'm honored and flattered.
But the story is just so good forgetting me forget
(17:49):
the book. The story is just so incredible. When I
heard it, I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
When I learned about how the you know, the prosecutors
and all the investigators involved were able to piece together
this evidence from a crime scene or I guess a battle,
you know, yeah, yeah, and you know they investigated it
just like they would a crime scene. You know, they
took the evidence, and uh, I believe it was Was
it the DOMEX system.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I was used to catalog all the you know, the
papers and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
And yeah, it is the DOMAC system, which is like
if you if you picture the end of Raiders of
the Lost Ark, the giant warehouse with every crate ever, like,
that is what the DOMAC system is. It's it's just
the documentation of everything having to do with terrorists or battles. Uh.
And to traverse that they had a guy, a guide almost,
(18:38):
a guy named Dave Hodgson who knew where ever, he
knew where everything was. But also there were there was
evidence of photographs from the battle scene, and they couldn't
find things. They didn't know where they lived anymore. So
then the prosecutors and the FBI agents and thus and
such had to go and talk to the service members.
(18:59):
Does anybody know where this is? Like a koran? Does
anybody know where this is? It's a notebook, you know,
and they had to track it down, and you know,
that's when you get into service. The service member's story,
there's a lot of the story of the ambush is
a big part of the book also because that's the
actual crime. But then also the service members, some of
them took back some things from the battlefield, as you knows,
(19:20):
as trophies or just remembrances of their battlefield, and like
the prosecutors had to figure out where they all were.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
One of the most intriguing notes is the you know,
the near the end of the book, during the trial,
you find out about there's a koran that has specific
physical evidence linking spin Gooole to the scene, and it's
just like that's exactly out of an episode of CSI.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Totally and the woman the woman who finds it. So
this I mean that one of this was one of
the great joys of writing this book is so many
of the characters are characters that you would if you
wrote this as a Hollywood screenplay, you would say, Okay,
we're going to have one of the FBI agents be
an African American woman from bal More who's Muslim, and
like you know, in the writer's room, they might be
(20:03):
come on, that's a little march. No, it's real. It's
a Rashana Muhammad, one of the heroes of the book.
That's who she is because to her, this is not
Islam al Qaida. This is a perversion of her faith.
And then the woman at Quantico, the fingerprint expert, is
this woman with dyed red hair, tats all over her body,
a nose ring again like a character from CSI or from.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
A cold case, yes or something.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
What's the other one? It was a really intense one
with Joe Montagna, uh and really dark. Mandy Patinkin was
in it. Anyway, there was another one of these proceivs,
criminal minds. That's it. This woman is from criminal minds
and you know, and and also she was I mean
just in terms of life imitating alread imitating life. She
was inspired to go into detective work like this by
(20:52):
watching an episode of Crossing Jordan because she was originally
going to be a veterinarian. Then she filled in at
the vets office and it was just two pain full
to have to put cats and dogs down. She hated it,
and her mom's like, we're what they're watching Crossing Jordan
one night. You should? You should? You could do this
and show. She goes to West Virginia University, becomes an
expert in fingerprints, goes to Quantico, and like is a
(21:13):
key member of the team that helps lock away this
al Qaeda terrorist.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, it's so amazing, just all these different, like you know,
story threads that lead to this culmination. It's just the
fact that the story is woven over two decades pretty much.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, from two thousand and three to the I guess
two thousand and eighteen is when the verdict coment comes down.
But Daniel today, whether or not they know it, the
Trump administration is going to go forward with trying to
criminally prosecute a terrorist for killing service members abroad some
of one of the conspirators behind the Abbey Gate bombing
(21:49):
in twenty twenty one, and they're going to do that
in Virginia. They're doing it right now at the you know,
at the time. And we get into the political wins
in the book at the time in twenty two one,
I'm sorry, twenty eleven and twenty twelve, incredibly controversial to
try to try a terrorist in a criminal court as
opposed to sending him to Gitmo or go doing a
(22:11):
military commission. But now Trump's going to do it too,
And I bet he doesn't even know he's following in
Obama's footsteps.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
It's a really interesting kind of like through line through
the story is that you establish how when Obama became president,
he established you know, no, we're closing Gitmo.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
It's going to be done.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And obviously there were a lot of roadblocks to doing that.
Oh yeah, and that's still open, yeah, still open today.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah. But one of the other things though, is that
Obama wanted to prosecute terrorists in criminal courts, and he
faced a lot of headwinds not just from Republicans but
from Democrats too. But even if he hadn't wanted to
do that. The Italians would not have turned over spin
Ghoul in twenty eleven to the Americans for prosecution at
Gitmo or in a military tribunal, or if the death
(23:01):
penalty was on the table, because by twenty eleven Europe
had so revulsed at the American Global War on Terror
and how Bush had had conducted it, and even Obama
to an extent when it comes to the drone campaign,
they were, you know, they were only going to help
if if certain things were done in certain ways. So
even if Obama had not said we're going to do
(23:23):
this in a criminal court, the Italians would have insisted
on it, and then maybe spinal would have been freed
and we all in his goal and his life's goal
was to kill Americans and he I'm sure he would
have succeeded.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
M Yeah, it's really interesting. That's how the you know,
kind of like the namesake of the book comes in,
because American prosecutors are trying to make this case to
an Italian court that basically says, yeah, we're going to
charge him in a criminal court, but we don't want
to execute him. We don't want to send him to Gitmo.
So it's kind of like, you know, the middle part
of this book is almost a procedural.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah, well, they have to prove they have to prove
the case before the Italians. They have to they have
to prove the case to a degree before the Italians
will turn him over. And the Italians at the end
of the day, he didn't do anything to the Italians.
The Italians can't prosecute him for killing Americans, and so
(24:21):
the Italians would send him to a refugee camp and
those are low security. If no security, I mean, he
would have easily just like walked over the bush and
gone and killed Americans at a Starbucks. I mean, it
just it would have happened. That was his goal. So
they had to they had to race to build a case,
and then they had to build the case to convict
(24:42):
him or else, who knows what would happen. One of
the trials that happens during all of this, there's a
guy being tried for the embassy bombings, a guy named Gillani.
He was being tried in a criminal court for terrorists,
not not for killing soldiers on a battlefield, but for
killing American civilians and African civilians. And he almost gets
(25:03):
acquitted because the evidence is tainted by torture. The judge
throws out the key witness, and Gallani is acquitted of
two hundred and eighty four out of two hundred and
eighty five charges, And all the politicians and people in
the national security world are watching and saying, oh my god, like,
this guy almost got acquitted, and then he would have
(25:27):
just like, what would have happened to him? What do
you just beset free in Brooklyn, set free in Manhattan.
We can't have that happen. And so there was a
real fear of even bringing spring Gole to the United
States what that might mean.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yeah, one of the aspects of the book that I
really like is this, Uh, I don't know if it
was intentional or not, but it almost seems like this
theme of how, you know, prosecutors want to try and
you know, build a legal framework for trying terrorist in
American courts, and how difficult that is because when you
think about something like Nuremberg, where we are trying international
(26:03):
war criminals and almost like this international coalition of a court,
how that was very different and trying to try terrorists
in the US criminal court is it's such a novel thing.
Like it hadn't been tried before and hasn't really been
tried since until just now, Like you're saying with Trump.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
So Nuremberg, I mean the fascinating parallel with that is like,
you know, that was obviously a state actor Germany, Nazi Germany,
and the Nazis kept meticulous records of everything, and al
Qaeda is not that they're not affiliated with a specific
state and they don't keep great records intentionally or unintentionally.
(26:43):
You know, they're just so there's so much subterfuge because
they operate in the dark, because they're committing acts of terrorism,
not you know, genocide through camps set up by the state,
et cetera. So it's completely different. And the debate over
which is the best way to to go after terrorists,
is it military commissions or is it criminal courts, I
(27:07):
feel like it's pretty much been answered by just the
success of the criminal courts. The criminal court system has
locked up hundreds of terrorists, and the military commissions because
it's still so new and the law is so fresh
and debated, and also because so much of the evidence
is so tainted because of the torture, that the criminal
(27:29):
courts have really just won the argument based on the merits.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah, and it seems like it's becoming almost like this
moral question because now you have the US government going
after these terrorists in Venezuela, you know, use to just
kill them extra judicially, and it just seems like this
type of story is more I don't know, needed, than
ever a different moral outcome.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
It's interesting that you raise that because I because I
covered that earlier this week my CNN show. And the
idea of what President Trump is trying to do is
really fascinating and I guess, depending on your political and
legal point of view, either great or disgusting. But what
he's trying to do is take the model that US
presidents since Bush including Obama, have created, which is, we
(28:21):
have the right to protect the American people from terrorists
who want to kill us. Therefore, we assert this right
to you know, kill people in Yemen with drones if
we want to. And Trump is Trump in February declared
trend de Aragua, this Venezuelan cartel, drug cartel, a terrorist group.
(28:44):
Just on his own, he did that, which he can do,
and then is saying because they kill Americans through drugs,
through the drugs, that they sell to the United States,
we have the right to kill them extra judicially, as
you note, by striking their ships. And this Congress does
(29:06):
not really have the appetite to challenge anything President Trump does.
But it is an interesting debate because I don't know
that a court would uphold that. I don't know if
anybody's going to challenge it. But I mean, certainly Americans
dying by drugs is horrible, and certainly I shed no
tear for any member of Trende Aragua who gets killed.
(29:29):
But is it the same thing is selling drugs in
the United States and those drugs kill people? Is that
the same thing as nine to eleven? I don't know
that it is, And so I mean, I think it's
I think it's at the very least. I think it's
an interesting debate and an interesting discussion about the need
to have rules and also just debates about these topics.
(29:53):
And most world leaders, as Trump is no exception, don't
want any discussion or debate over anything doing. But I
do think that you take this conversation in an interesting
place because of the assertion of these powers when it
comes to when it comes to drug cartels.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, and it's I am just like, after reading this book,
I'm reminded that, you know, there is a better way
to go about things that you know, we reread in
this book that the US government was able to successfully
build a case against spin Gooul and convict him any
US criminal court. Yeah, and it is just reminding me
(30:32):
and hopefully many of the readers out there that you know,
this was a very successful outcome, and we could see
other successful outcomes like this in the future if we
proceed to go down this route.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Although the judge, right, Judge Cogan at the end of
the book, even though he you know, he supervises the
successful prosecution, and I think as a compelling character, he
doesn't understand why they did it at all. You know.
His view is like Obama is the president, he can
set any rules he wants. Why are we doing this?
This is so stupid? Are we doing this? He basically
(31:03):
thought that the entire trial was just to demonstrate what
you're talking about, Like, look, we're the Americans. We have
these great ideals and we can fulfill them. And he
thought it was kind of stupid, like why are you
doing this? He's obviously guilty. Lock them up, like you
don't have to send him to a super max in Colorado.
We have gon Guantanamo. Like you're the president, you can
(31:24):
make up any rule you want, which is an interesting
I thought that was like so many times I would
be interviewing people for the book, they would say something
that surprised me. And when Judge Cogan said that to
me when I interviewed him, I thought it was fascinating
because you know, he supervised this demonstration of our ideals
and he thought it was kind of a waste of time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yeah, it's an interesting moral dilemma, and it's just like
one that's proposed by the book One of Many. And
you know, I just wanted to ask you mentioned that
that was a very surprising thing from Judge Cogan. What
was the most surprising thing you found out while researching
this book.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
The two that stick with me the most are opposite
sides of humanity. One of them is Doc Simmons is
a character who is in at Fire Based Skin in
two thousand and three. He's the medic and he's also
a man of deep religious faith, deep Christian faith, and
(32:22):
he has on his kit an illustration of Jesus. I
think washing the feet of No No Jesus and the Romans,
and Jesus forgiving his persecutors, and it's a reminder to
him of the humanity of all of us, even our enemies.
Here's Jesus with the Romans, and if Jesus can find
(32:43):
it in him to forgive the Romans, I am here
to be a physician for everybody. And he goes into
battle thinking that like that, I will help Afghans, I
will help all Kaida, I will help the Taliban, I
will help insurgents. I will help my men first and foremost,
but I will help anybody. And after the ambush his
heart is so changed. He rips that illustration, he rips
(33:04):
the picture off his kit. That was such a powerful
moment to me that he went through that crisis. And
then conversely, the brother of one of the two men
that Spingoul is convicted of killing, Renley Dennis, the brother
of Jared Dennis who was killed at Firebashkin. Renley Dennis
(33:27):
reads a book called You Cannot Have My Hate. The
book is written by a Frenchman whose wife was killed
when Isis attacked the Botoclon nightclub in Paris, and it's
basically saying the book basically says, you took my wife,
but I'm not gonna obsess about you. I'm not going
(33:48):
to devote my life to hating you. You cannot have
my hate. And Renley basically is inspired when it's time
for the victim's impact statements during sentencing to forgive spin
Goal and say, my brother Jared, he would have wanted
me to forgive you. He would have like, yeah, and
(34:09):
you're I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here hating you.
I'm gonna forgive you. I feel bad for you. I'm
going to forgive you. And and it is so moving
and so powerful that Judge Cogan has to go into
his chambers to collect himself before sentencing spin Gol. So
those two moments were the most those are the ones
that stay with me. But honestly, the book is and
(34:30):
again this isn't because of me. I just happened upon
the story. The book is so full of so many
incredible Americans and incredible characters and with their own stories
and their own fears and hopes and dreams. It was
really just such a such a I mean, there's a
lot of work writing the book, but it was such
a pleasure writing it and telling these people's stories.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
I think of all the stories that you told throughout
the book, I think the one that stuck with me
the most was probably you know, the anecdote about Renley
near the end with that, and you know, just when
you introduce his brother Jared Dennis earlier in the book.
It was one of those when you introduced him, I
started immediately in my mind, I'm like, there's no way
this part of the story ends.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Well, but yeah, that is. That is I mean, that's
a tell.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I know.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
I know, as soon as you say it's like in
the war movie, as soon as somebody's talking about how
much he misses his wife, You're like, oh god.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
But it was funny because I grew up so I
was eleven years old when September eleventh happened. So you know,
when I was eighteen coming of age, that was when
the War on Terror was still pretty much at its fullest.
You know, Iraq and Afghanistan we're both raging. And I
had a lot of friends who were graduating from high
school or you know, didn't graduate from high school that
joined the military.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
You know, Jared Dennis who barely graduated.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, yep, and some of them you know, I just
saw so many of my friends in him, you know, yeah,
barely graduating, you know, enjoying chasing girls and smoking weed
more than reading books.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Class clown. Everybody loves him, kind of a goof off,
almost doesn't graduate. His mom, his mama gets involved. Kid
like a native Native American from Oklahoma. Great kid, everybody
loved him, kind of a goof almost gets almost gets
kicked out of the military for a hot hot piss
(36:22):
for drug test that goes bad but ends up you know,
being one of the best soldiers in the unit, a
private gardenas who you know, who dies in action, who
volunteers to go out into the ambush and try to
help his fellow soldiers. Same thing with Ray Losano, an American,
(36:44):
great guy, Latino wife, two kids at home or I
think he had pregnant wife at home and a daughter.
And he was you know, he was married to his wife, Sarah,
and he was like the working at the front desk
of the motel, sick, making no money, and the Air
Force just seemed like a better option for him, and
(37:04):
he and Jared enlisted before nine to eleven, before you know,
back when it seemed like a low risk professional option.
I mean, people forget the nineties, but that's what it
was like. There was you know, there were a lot
of people who served in the ninety nineties who never
saw a lack of action and there and there was
(37:25):
no risk. I mean there was, there was. There were
wars during that period. There was Panama, there was Yugoslavia,
but still nothing that the US was directly involved in
for a long, long period of time. And then all
of a sudden they did enlisted, and all of a
sudden we were at war with al Qaida, and you know,
they were thrust into harm's way.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
That's funny you mentioned the nineties. Both my in laws
were Air Force in the late eighties, and it was
right before the Goal War. That was when the military
did the big like, you know, we're going to try
and let everyone go, give them signing bonuses, and then two.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Years later Goal forar.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Right, So it's just like we forget how the military
was seen as this almost like a safe option.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Yeah. No, I graduated from college in ninety one and
the military was never even something I thought about because
it wasn't like other than the Gulf War, which was
a very short war, and it was not we were
not attacked. Kuwait was attacked, and it was an exertion
(38:24):
of force against Saddam Hussein. But it was a very
quick war. Americans were killed in it, and I don't
mean to say it wasn't a big deal, but it
wasn't what Iraq later became or Afghanistan later became. Anyway,
It just like it was great and heroic that people
were joining the military. But it was just a different
vibe because it wasn't. The idea that you weren't going
(38:47):
to make it out was a remote and I don't
think anybody in the time in the eighties, very few
people probably thought that way. I certainly didn't anyone. I'll
speak for myself. It's just like the idea like we
hadn't been involved in very serious war since since Vietnam.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, just crazy to think about how
times have changed.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
But it's very different today. It's very different today.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Yeah, But you know, we got a few minutes left.
I just wanted to applaud you on the great book.
It's a very compelling, very cinematic. Do you want to
leave the listeners with any thoughts before we get going.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
No, I mean, it's just one of the things that
was just fun about writing this book is like, you know,
I write fiction too, but nonfiction, it's just it's more
in my blood, just because the true stories of what
people go through. And in this book there's so many
great Americans represented. The whole American mosaic is represented in
this book. You know, every race and religion and background
(39:44):
is there. And I just thought it was just when
Dave Bitkower told me the story, I'm like, this is
the greatest yarn I've heard a long long time. And
I just if I bring even half of that to
the book that I'm honored. And I hope people enjoy it. Well.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I think they will. I think it's going to be
a great book. And I appreciate your time. Thank you
so much for chatting with me.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Thank you, it was real honor.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, hopefully we have to chat again soon with your
next book.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Okay, I haven't started that oning it, so give me
a little.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Time, take a well deserved break.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Okay, thanks Michael, I appreciate it. Yes, say thank you,
bye bye, you.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Care bye bye.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I want to give another special thanks to Jake Tapper
for joining us on the show. It was an honor
to chat with him, and honestly, he could not have
been a nicer guy to talk to.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
As you could.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Probably tell, I was pretty excited and maybe a little
overcaffeinated during our chat. But please go and check out
his new book, Race Against Terror from Atria Books wherever
you can find it. I honestly had a hard time
putting it down. It's a gripping story and Jake did
a great job writing it.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Go check it out.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Lastly, before go, I want to give another quick thank
you to everyone listening. It's really truly hard to believe
that it's been ten years since this show got started.
When I uploaded the first episode of Unresolved, I was
a middle school librarian in my mid twenties with a
little too much free time at my disposal, who had
dabbled in journalism back in college and always had an
interest in true crime. When I uploaded the first episode
(41:21):
of the original night Stalker series, I did not expect
anyone to listen, but a ton of you did, and
you not only gave me good constructive criticism, you complimented
and encouraged me to keep going. I'm so glad that
I did. I'm not gonna lie. There have been times
over the last decade that I thought maybe enough's enough,
Maybe it's time we wrap up the show. When I
had kids, when things in my own life just got
(41:43):
a little too overwhelming, during my half dozen or so
cross country moves. Seriously, I'm just about done with those.
But I'm so happy that I still have the show.
It's become a constant in my life over the last
ten years, and I don't think I would give it
up for anything. Now that I look back on the
last decade, I wonder where the next ten years will
take us. Hopefully I'll get to release another special episode
(42:04):
on October seventh, twenty thirty five, which, holy shit, does
not seem like a real year. Anyhow, until next time,
I hope you all stay safe and stay healthy. I
will talk to you all later.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Bye.
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