Getting Away with Murder- Sibel Edmonds & John Cole Transcript
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Subject: Getting Away with Murder- Sibel Edmonds & John Cole
Transcript
Date: Nov 2, 2009 7:03 AM
Thankfully AntiWar transcribed this
interview (because it's faster to
read than listen to people talking).
Getting away with mass-murder:
http://www.actionlyme.org/CRYME_DISEASE.htm
IDsociety.org never answered Blumenthal's
subpoena for *all* *their* data for a year
and a half before settling out of court:
http://www.actionlyme.org/080430_RICO_CABAL_CAVES.htm
KMDickson
=====================================
http://original.antiwar.com/scott/2009/11/01/fbi-whistleblower-names-names/
FBI Whistleblower Names Names
Scott Horton interviews Sibel Edmonds and John M. Cole, November 02,
2009
Email This | Print This | Share This | Comment | Antiwar Forum
Interview recorded Oct. 23, 2009. Listen to the interview.
Scott Horton: For Antiwar.com and KAOS Radio 95.9 in Austin, Texas,
I’m Scott Horton, and this is Antiwar Radio.
I’m happy to welcome to the show Sibel Edmonds and John M. Cole. Of
course, I’ve talked with Sibel, the former FBI translator-turned
whistleblower, numerous times on this show and various other shows of
mine over the years, and this will be the first time we have John Cole
joining her.
Her old Antiwar.com archives are there at Antiwar.com/Edmonds. Her own
Web sites are JustACitizen.com and 123RealChange.BlogSpot.com. At
BradBlog.com you can find her sworn deposition in a recent civil case
from August of 2009, and at The American Conservative magazine, which
is AmConMag.com, you can find the interview by former CIA officer and
Antiwar.com regular, Philip Giraldi, called "Who’s Afraid of Sibel
Edmonds?"
And John M. Cole is a former FBI agent and whistleblower. He’s the
author of While America Sleeps: An FBI Whistleblower’s Story. And so
I’d like to welcome you both to the show.
John M. Cole: Thank you.
Sibel Edmonds: Thank you.
Horton: I’m very happy to have you here. And John, I’m sorry, I
actually have your bio here from the National Security Whistleblower’s
Coalition, but I actually thought I would ask you to introduce
yourself so that you can explain exactly what your job at the FBI was,
because I think the last I heard I didn’t quite understand – some sort
of executive or something. I didn’t know exactly what that meant.
Cole: No, I was not an executive. Basically what I was doing at the
bureau, I had numerous positions. But when I started out in the bureau
my first assignment was working with Bob Hansen. He was actually my
supervisor in the Soviet unit. And then I was transferred to the front
office for the counter-intelligence division and worked with Assistant
Director Jim Geer and Tom DuHadaway was the deputy. I did that for a
few years and then moved on to working the 203 program which was
basically all of the counterintelligence investigations that we had in
the bureau on mostly western Europe and Israel. I did that from ‘93 to
‘95. And then from ‘95 to ‘98 I was down at Quantico and I ran the
FBI’s counterintelligence Operational Training Center. In ‘98 to 2000
I worked undercover, and then from 2000 I went back to headquarters
and I worked the Southeast Asia desk, and I also worked the "PENTTBOM"
investigation after 9/11. I was up in the command center of the
bureau, the "SIOC," our command center, working the PENTTBOM
investigation for several months until I finally resigned in March of
2004.
Horton: I’m sorry, can you repeat that last one? Which one for the
last several months there?
Cole: Oh, "PENTTBOM." It was the 9/11 investigation. Right after the
attacks on 9/11, the day after, I was up in the FBI’s command center
working that case. We called it the "PENTTBOM" investigation.
Horton: Oh, I see. Well, and what a good place to dive into the most
controversial part of Sibel Edmonds’s recent revelations to Philip
Giraldi in The American Conservative magazine and the testimony in the
civil deposition in this court case in August: that the United States,
under the CIA? – I’m not exactly sure, Sibel – had covert operations
in cooperation with, quote, unquote, "the mujahedin" and including,
quote, you say to Philip Giraldi here, "bin Ladens," all the way up
until 9/11. Can you repeat that part of the story and tell us as much
as you can there?
Edmonds: Correct. You basically summed it up pretty well. And it was
not the CIA based on what we gathered, it was always referred to as
the State Department.
Horton: Well, I guess Giraldi says in here he thinks that’s a
euphemism for the CIA, but you don’t seem to think so?
Edmonds: Well, it was very interesting because some of the actors who
were involved in these operations at the higher level, they were in
touch with the target diplomatic community that we have
counterintelligence investigations on, they were actually outside the
government, or appear to be outside the government and they were
involved in private businesses.
Horton: Well, and I guess this is kind of a confusing point, right?:
between what is an officially sanctioned illegal act, a covert
activity with a presidential "finding" behind it, and what is just
government employees participating in criminal black markets for their
own ends. John, can you explain at all what she’s talking about here?
Cole: Well there’ve been a lot of theories on that. I know when I was
in the bureau there’s been a lot of espionage investigations that we
had on State Department officials and also DoD employees. The thing is
though, we know for a fact also that there were other people involved
in helping the bin Laden family get out of the country right after
9/11, and there was some other things going on, illegal activity like
Sibel stated to assist the family also. Certainly she’s accurate in
stating that. I can’t get into any specifics on who we investigated in
the State Department, but I will say that we did have some espionage
investigations and criminal investigations on individuals in the State
Department at that time.
Horton: Well that’s another thing that’s not clear in the interview
Sibel, is that I believe you say Marc Grossman made some phone calls
and I think you’ve told me this before, at least in bits and pieces,
that Marc Grossman made some phone calls to have some Turks released.
And there was a worry that they would "let the cat out of the bag."
Although it’s not clear whether you’re talking about something about
September 11th or just the Turkish spy/crime ring in general.
Edmonds: I did not mention or use Marc Grossman’s name or his
involvement to start with. First of all, that information was made
public by several other reporters before, and it was after that that I
went on the record and talked about his role and his importance in the
counterintelligence investigation that FBI was conducting.
Horton: Well is that part right, that he made a phone call?
Edmonds: That’s number one. And I never talk about the methods of
intelligence gathering. I said it was based on his order from the
State Department and I did not state…. That’s why it’s good to correct
these, because there’s a lot of misinformation out there. There were
two people from Uzbekistan and two people from Turkey. And they were
arrested right after September 11th in New Jersey. And they were
detained. And this was both operations jointly by FBI and also the
immigration department. And it was then the target Turkish diplomatic
community individuals who were targeted by the FBI’s surveillance,
they were arranging with Mr. Grossman – and he was in the State
Department at the time – to get these individuals out without being
interrogated and sent back, deported to Turkey, without being
interrogated. And that’s exactly what took place. And again, these
files came not from counterintelligence, from counter-terrorism, it
was not Washington’s field office, it was from New Jersey, from the
Patterson area. So these are all these little things that sometimes
people hear and they go and repeat it and there’s just a lot of false
information. It’s good, I’m glad I’m getting a chance here to give you
the facts of "here is the story on that."
Horton: Well, me too. And listen, I’ve been covering this story for a
long time and it’s come out in a lot of bits and pieces, Sibel. It’s
kind of hard to keep straight exactly. I’m afraid I still don’t
understand really whether you’re saying that the information you came
across here was, people in the American government doing something
illegal and underhanded, or something that was official and very chain
of command, it’s just scandalous, kind of a thing. It was a State
Department order you say, that he do this?
Edmonds: Right. It was a specific State Department order to get these
guys released and deported to Turkey because of sensitive diplomatic
relations. Now some of these people may have had diplomatic immunity
because they were connected to intelligence service of other
countries. So without getting into specifics and details, and I don’t
think any loyal FBI employee, I’m not talking about loyal to the
management, but to what truly is classified, would not talk about the
specifics because I don’t know if some other right now even foreign
governments are surveilling those people who were deported back to
Turkey, those four individuals. But in this particular case it was an
official decision. It was an official decision between the diplomatic
community here, for Turkey, and the State Department person, Marc
Grossman, to get these individuals out of detention and deport them
back to Turkey. And there’s a period after that. That is one story.
Now what was the justification for it? Did these people possess
extremely important information? I don’t know. We don’t know. The
agents never got to find out. And these are some of the questions that
haven’t been answered in many, many, many cases. Nothing. And John
Cole just referred to one, why the bin Laden family were allowed,
without being interrogated, to leave the country. That’s an official
decision. The story ends there. Period. What did they know? We don’t
know. Why did they do it? We don’t know. We can speculate, but we
don’t know.
Horton: You can see why though, from here, this is a much more
scandalous story, as scandalous as that is – which it’s obviously
horrible. It was somebody’s discretion there in the official chain of
command. It would be a much different story if we were talking about
State Department employees intervening for their friends in this
illegal spy ring that they’re part of outside of the chain of command
just committing felonies on their own.
Cole: I’d like to interrupt for one second if you don’t mind.
Horton: Please.
Cole: A couple of things, a couple of points, one that Sibel hit on.
She’s absolutely right in regards to a lot of the FBI agents that are
out there working in the field are given orders to stand back or to do
certain things and they have no idea why. That comes from headquarters
level, that comes from executive level at headquarters.
Edmonds: Right.
Cole: And the thing is, in order for those individuals to leave, when
she’s talking about the State Department intervening and making sure
these people were released and sent back to Turkey, that would have
had to come from higher up than just one person at the State
Department. That would have had to come from the White House in order
for them to leave.
Horton: All right. And John, tell me – you say you worked on the 9/11
investigation after this – when you hear Sibel Edmonds saying that
these guys were working with "mujahedin" and "bin Ladens"… Sibel, can
you say whether you’re talking about Osama as one of those plural bin
Ladens that you’re mentioning there?
Edmonds: Okay, let me state it. For certain operations that we had –
and this is we, being the United States. That specific operation that
involved Turkey as a proxy started around 1995, 1996 – late 1995,
early 1996 – and the central Asian countries, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan,
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, those regions together with a
certain region that is part of China [were included].
[The Chinese region is] called Xinjiang, but in Turkey they refer to
it as "East Turkestan." Some people, they refer to that region as
"Uyghuristan." These are, in English they say "Uyghurs," but they are
the ethnic Turkish people in this section of [China] that are called
in Turkey, and in Turkish, "Uyghurs."
So both bin Laden and the mujahedin were supporting a lot of these
operations that we had – the United States – implementing most of it
via Turkish proxies. And these are Turkish military people, they were
Turkish paramilitary people under MIT [Turkish intelligence] in
Central Asia. And for these operations, whether it was channeling some
of these mujahedin from Pakistan, from Saudi Arabia, from Afghanistan
to Chechnya, and send them as armed people with… given passports by
foreign governments, like Azerbaijani passports or with Turkish
passports, to go and be involved in certain operations against Russia
in Chechnya. Then they were also funneling some of these people
through Turkey. First into Turkey, then their passports would change
and they would send these people to the Balkans region during the
conflict in 1998, in 1999. So for these operations the U.S.
operations, we worked very closely with bin Ladens, plural. Not only
Osama bin Laden. With certain pretty well known Saudi individuals,
with [Pakistani] ISI. But mainly with the Turkish, both military and
paramilitary actors in that region.
See, most Americans, they don’t know about Central Asia. Central Asia
is not being covered – not really being covered by the mainstream
media or the alternative media. So they really don’t think of anything
when it comes to Central Asia. Central Asia is going to be the Middle
East in less than 10-15 years. That’s my prediction, because a lot of
things have been going on in Central Asia, like it did in other
regions, in the Middle East, that we are not hearing about, and we are
going to be surprised when a lot of this stuff ends up blowing up.
For example the assassination attempt on the [Azerbaijani] President
Aliyev in [1995]. That particular operation, they were done by
individual states. In this particular operation there were two states
involved. The United States and there were these two, official Turkish
paramilitary and these people have been part of Turkish military since
1982. So these individuals went there, and they didn’t go from Turkey.
They went from Chicago. And this is completely documented. So if you
were to go and look at this investigation that occurred in Turkey
because there were a lot of [unintelligible] and outrage once this
scandal was leaked, that these Turkish paramilitary individuals were
doing these assassination attempts on behalf of the U.S. in Central
Asian countries, they were running these casinos in Azerbaijan, in
Kazakhstan, in Turkmenistan, and also the narcotics deals. Formal
investigations were launched in 1997, 1998 in Turkey. And this is by
Parliament, so this information is on the record. Just Americans don’t
know about it because it was widely reported in European media. It was
the headlines for months and months in France, in the United Kingdom,
in Germany, but not here. It was never mentioned. So these
individuals, the culprit in this case, who actually attempted to
assassinate Aliyev, even though he was most wanted by Interpol at the
time, this is between 1989 and 1995, he lived in Chicago. From Chicago
he went to Turkey, he went to Azerbaijan, he went several times into
Beijing and from Beijing. And they didn’t stop his entries and exits.
This is documented stuff. But nobody in the United States would know
about it because the entire scandal and the implication of the U.S.
operations within these scandals have been covered up. So it’s very
hard to talk about this issue without having a lot of historical
background provided to the audience.
Horton: Well there’s a little bit of historical background that I
think ought to be right at peoples’ fingertips, which is all the
stories about Paul Wolfowitz’s proposal of a coup d’état in the lead
up to the Iraq War because the Turkish government wasn’t going along
with letting us invade from Turkey. And that’s another part of your
story, Sibel.
Edmonds: No. This part of it, I don’t know if it was criminal. This
part of it at the time it was not of importance to the agents I worked
with. This is when individuals from the Pentagon, they contact, I
can’t tell you phone, I can’t tell you e-mail, but when they contact
directly, the high level diplomatic people, whether it’s the highest
level person in the Turkish military attaché or the highest level
person in the embassy. These were official discussions, and this was
before 9/11, about plans to attack Iraq, and how that planned state
was, and what they wanted, and what Turkey wanted. So this in no way
was considered illegal in the FBI because the counterintelligence
agents, the FBI counterintelligence agents were not interested,
rightfully. Because they were looking for spies in this particular
operation. So just the fact that official people from the Pentagon and
the State Department were talking with high level diplomatic Turkish
people on planning to attack Iraq before September 11th was of no
interest to them. Rightfully, because it was the wrong division. This
is not something that the FBI finds interesting. But of course after
September 11th, after the whole debacle with Iraq, now when you look
back it was like, "Oh my God, these guys were planning this." Well
later they used September 11th, they used the weapons of mass
destruction and all those lies that we found out. But at the time when
these communications were being recorded, being from one official to
another official, it was, okay, they’re chatting about Iraq. Going and
invading Iraq. It was going to be basically the UK and the United
States.
Horton: Well I believe you say out loud in the Philip Giraldi
interview at The American Conservative magazine, you name not just the
neocons at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, but you
also say that James Baker and Brent Scowcroft were in on these
negotiations as well, is that right?
Edmonds: Correct. They have been working for Turkish lobbyists for a
long time. But they were not negotiating on behalf of the United
States government. They were negotiating with the United States
officials on behalf of Turkey. They were the ones who were preparing
the reports, submitting it to the Pentagon and saying why it was
important to let Turkey take care of northern Iraq and
militaristically, logistically they were trying to justify Turkey’s
demand. That these were the reasons for the United States to agree
with Turkey to take care of northern Iraq in this plan. But the
Pentagon didn’t want to have Turkey play any role. They were already
working with the Kurds in northern Iraq and that pissed off Turkey.
Later Turkey said the reason they didn’t allow U.S. troops to go
through their base there was because the public, people in Turkey,
92%, they didn’t want this to happen. Well it’s true that 92% in
Turkey didn’t want this to happen, but the Turkish military, Turkish
government, has never listened to the Turkish public. So that was just
an excuse which made them more popular in Turkey with the public
because that was true: the people in Turkey didn’t want this. But that
was not the reason for the decision. The reason for the decision was,
Turkey was pissed because already the Pentagon and British government
had plans in place, they were working in northern Iraq with the Kurds
and they didn’t want to get this thing murky with Turkish interference
with northern Iraq.
So that’s as simple as that. Now is there a conspiracy there? I don’t
know. Is this illegal? I don’t think so. This is how diplomatic
communities talk to each other. So if you’re listening to, I’m just
going to give an example, an ambassador of Pakistan, or today let’s
say the ambassador of Afghanistan here is talking with Hillary
Clinton, this is the kind of garbage you’re going to be listening to
that are going to be highly explosive. But are these illegal? No. Are
these terrible foreign policy decisions not for the public interest
here in the United States?
Horton: Absolutely.
Edmonds: Terrible foreign policy? Surely. And the people have the need
to know. They should know.
Horton: Now before we get into all this pilfering nuclear secrets,
John, I want you to address the question of Sibel Edmonds’s
credibility, because, of course, many of the things that she talks
about, although there is corroboration of certain parts of it in the
media in bits and pieces, basically she’s sort of a single source
saying a lot of these things. It has been, at least so far, pretty
easy for people to just dismiss her as not credible for whatever
reason. And so being that you’re a former counterintelligence agent
from Washington, D.C., and you have come out and vouched for her
before, I was hoping maybe you could just explain to people why it is
that you find her credible, and as part of that, maybe if you could
tell us about her job description, just how much she would know, and
also whether or not what she says comports – or to what degree what
she says comports – with the facts as you already know them. Here she
was a translator and you were the guy way up the ladder.
Cole: I can tell you right now, there was an article that came out, I
think it was in the Washington Post in 2002, it named Sibel Edmonds in
the headline naming that also. And at that time I was still at FBI
headquarters and I went into work that day and one of the executives
on the 7th floor came to me and said, "Hey, did you know that your
name is in the paper?" I said, no, I didn’t realize that. They said,
"Well, it’s on the director’s desk." I thought, "Oh, crap." But I read
the article and I didn’t know who Sibel Edmonds was at the time. So I
asked somebody. I said, who’s this Sibel Edmonds? And they told me,
well, she’s a translator and they explained to me exactly what
transpired with Sibel. And I wanted to talk to Sibel. I said, "Boy,
I’d like to talk with this person," because I too came out and wrote
letters to the director of the FBI and told him my concerns about
espionage with some language specialists in the FBI. And what Sibel
was saying made a lot of sense to me, because from personal experience
I saw it too. But they didn’t want me to talk to Sibel, so I was
unable to get in touch with Sibel.
But somebody in the FBI and executive level on the 7th floor told me
one morning, they said, "The director better be careful because
everything Sibel stated is absolutely true. They’ve investigated it
and they looked into it and it’s absolutely true." But you know, and
the woman I talked to said, "However, it will be interesting to see
how the bureau handles this."
Well anyway, after a few years I finally got in touch with Sibel, and
met Sibel and talked to her, and we talked about specifics of what
happened to her and what information she knew and I told her a little
bit about what I knew from the investigations I worked, and they all
matched up. Just right along the line. I said, "Yes, I’m aware of
that. I know we had an investigation on that." And I won’t go into
specifics about who we investigated because I can’t. But I can tell
you that everything that she stated to me at the time was 100%
accurate. And I said, "This woman is incredible. She knows an awful
lot of information. And what she’s telling me, what she told people in
her office up the chain of command is absolutely correct."
There’s no reason why she should have been let go. A matter of fact,
she should have gotten a medal for the information she was providing
headquarters’ management. They should have acted on it, they should
have taken care of it and they should have rewarded her for coming
forward and bringing these issues to the attention of management. But
they didn’t do that. I know for a fact that some of the things that
Sibel discusses, as far as espionage cases that she brought up in
regards to State Department officials and regards to Department of
Defense officials, is absolutely correct. In fact, one of the people
that she named as far as committing espionage in the FBI, I’m very
familiar with that case involving her husband – the translator’s
husband.
Horton: We’re talking about Melek Can Dickerson and Douglas Dickerson.
Cole: Yes I am. And so I’m very familiar with that. She was 100% on
that. I haven’t found anything that she hasn’t been 100% on. As far as
a language specialist in the bureau, in her job they gather a ton of
information. And this information that they get is very, very
sensitive information. The information comes in from whatever document
that needs to be translated. They translate that and they send it to
the case agent who uses it for his individual case against that
subject. So they’re getting the firsthand knowledge, firsthand
information…
Horton: Well now critics would say, "Yeah, but another word for that
is ‘raw intelligence.’ And after all, she’s just a translator and
whatever she says she thinks happened because she overheard something,
she’s not really in a position to know and she’s probably taking a lot
of this stuff out of context," John.
Cole: Well I disagree with that. Yeah, some of it is raw intelligence
as you put it. But a lot of that intelligence that you’re getting is
direct conversations, for example it could be direct conversations
between two individuals. And that could be over different methods that
they use at the FBI. So in that respect she would have firsthand
knowledge of, let’s say, someone speaking to somebody else about a
specific operation that they were planning or a specific threat that
they felt that they were threatened with or whatever. She would have
got that information firsthand, she would have passed it to the case
agent, the case agent then would have used that in this investigation
to try to counter that threat, whatever the threat would be.
Edmonds: And I want to add something here, and that’s another
important point that, again, most people who are not familiar with the
intelligence world and how this works. They just don’t understand so
they just simplify, "Okay, you basically put on a headset and you
translate and you just have ‘raw data.’" And again, that’s why I gave
the interview to Phil Giraldi, because Phil Giraldi won’t be ignorant
enough to make that kind of statement. Because he knows the
intelligence world and he has worked with language specialists. One of
the other things that John would expand upon is, while the case agent
may be looking at – a particular case agent of a particular operation
– one, or two, or three targets, the language specialist will be
translating and briefing six, seven, eight, nine different agents on
different cases. So while agent A may not know anything that is going
to agent B from the language specialist and his case, even though they
may be related, the language specialist sits in the center, retrieves
all this information and then disseminates…
Cole: Mmm hmm [affirmative].
Edmonds: Therefore the language specialist would know about nine
different cases, nine different field offices maybe, two different
operations while each agent would have their own little window, need
to know basis, task of a particular target.
Cole: Well that’s exactly correct. I mean, when I was at headquarters,
especially in ‘93 to ‘95 when I was working Western Europe and Israel,
I had 300 ongoing investigations at one time. I knew what cases
involved, one particular country was involved say in L.A., San
Francisco or New York. My job was to assist the field agents into
approving whatever they needed to run their operation. The information
that would come from the language specialists would come up, and Sibel
is exactly right, you might intercept some information and get the
information and would talk about several different items that might be
used for, let’s say, the agent out in San Francisco that was doing his
operation, the case agent in New York that had an operation going on,
at headquarters we try to put that together and say, "Okay, this is
what’s going on, this is what they’re looking at and this is what
they’re planning."
And we put them all together and we give the case agents, the ones
that are on the streets, we give them information about what’s going
on throughout the U.S., how they’re operating. If there’s an espionage
case, how they’re assessing and recruiting, and so on and so forth. A
language specialist, they get that information. It would be no
different than if there was a criminal case for example, and you
intercepted a telephone conversation and said that we’re going to have
the bust go down on 0900 on this date, and this is who’s involved, and
this is what we want you guys to do, and so on and so forth. She’s
getting that information, she’s sending it to the case agent who then
sets up the operation. So she’s getting a lot of information, she
understands what’s going on. I don’t see how she couldn’t understand
what’s going on.
Horton: Well, and I think you say, Sibel… Was it in the grand jury
testimony where you explain that you might even have to kind of
translate dialects and explain why if somebody’s from a certain town
this idiom will kind of have that emphasis instead of that? – very
subtle kinds of things that you would have to kind of be from Turkey
to know.
Edmonds: Right. I’m glad you brought up this point, because in that
case, I mean I really love working with these agents because they
didn’t have ego issues. The field agents. I’m not talking about the
executive level bureaucrats in the headquarters. But all of those
agents I worked with, actually, they were great. And they understood
that, you know, like the counterintelligence training they have in
Quantico and the preparation…. Let’s say they’re assigned to Turkey.
Like for example, one of the agents I was working with, he did not
even know that the capital city of Turkey was Ankara and not Istanbul.
Just didn’t know. Because the bureau didn’t put emphasis in training
the agents about the country, the history, the current political
individuals in the country, the various differences between, let’s say
which section of Turkey would have more tendency towards Islamic
extremism, versus which section, let’s say, it’s the Black Sea area,
would be more into the Gray Wolf area of ultra-nationalism with
criminal elements. You know, the border region with Iran will have
different types of M.O. (modus operandi), and dialect and cultures.
So the agents at least were good enough to come and say, "Okay,
Sibel," and I’m sure they did it with the other language specialists,
the agents, I don’t know. "Tell us. Give us background." In fact the
special agent I worked with, at the end of the day he would give me
ten keywords – and this actually shows how pathetic FBI was with the
computer system. He would give me ten keywords and he would ask me to
Google it from home, this is Turkish related stuff, in Turkish and
find the stuff, translate it for him and get it to him the next day,
brief him, because let’s say one of the suspects we have here was
involved with a particular political whatever investigation in Turkey.
Okay, I’m just giving an example. So I would bring these keywords, at
home I would Google it in Turkish, and I would read newspaper articles
on that person. I would sketch a profile for him. I’d say, okay, this
guy is purely narc. He is not involved with this particular thing, but
he’s purely heroin. He’s a narc guy. But the agent was good enough to
know that he didn’t have the resources, they didn’t give them the
training and both in terms of education, historical perspective,
cultural perspective, they need [the assistance]. That’s why they
liked having foreign born language specialists who live in the
country, who understood and also who were up to date with the
political stuff, the crimes related news in Turkey, because while
something wouldn’t make sense in something you intercept without
context, it would make a lot of sense if you know, "Ah, this and this
is related to this particular thing I read three days ago that has to
do with this corrupt chief of police in Istanbul." I’m giving you an
example. "And this guy used to work for this corrupt Chief of Police
and now he’s in Chicago dealing heroin, therefore he’s actually part
of the police network in Turkey."
Well there’s no way for an agent to find out about it unless they have
the language specialist who has the skills that are a combination of
analyst and linguistic abilities, because you have to do both.
Unfortunately they don’t get that with many linguists. I mean we had
language specialists who didn’t even have high school diplomas. So
basically they acted as stenographers. Listen to this and just put it
in there. But I lived in various countries, I have a master’s degree,
I have several bachelor’s degrees and I kept up to date with all the
current stuff whether it’s in Central Asia, Turkey or Iran. And these
agents were great because they wanted to utilize it instead of turning
their nose saying, "My God, this makes me look terrible." They were
like, "We need this. Great. Help us." And they kept writing
commendation letters. I mean the field agents were great. All the ones
that I worked with, they were patriotic, great people.
Cole: Well it’s because they were appreciative. They appreciated the
help. The problem with the bureau, maybe it’s changed, but I don’t
think it has. When I was in the bureau, that’s one thing I could never
understand, why they would take agents that were familiar with a
specific background of a country – let’s say somebody knew France,
lived there, knew the language, the culture, everything else, became
an FBI agent – the thing is the bureau would not use that person for
any investigations involving the French. They would have him do
something else completely different, for whatever reason. I have no
idea. We’ve had the same problem with the Arab speaking agents in the
bureau. The bureau didn’t want to use them on terrorism investigations
for whatever reason.
But as far as the information the language specialists know, they have
access to some of the most sensitive stuff that the bureau receives.
For example I had done a risk assessment on an individual that wanted
to become a language specialist in the FBI. This was right after the
attacks of 9/11. And I read the file and I found there was a lot of
problems with this individual so I wrote it all up and gave it to the
security personnel and the FBI. And as a matter of fact the security
specialist told me the same thing. She goes, "Mr. Cole, I’m so glad
you saw this because I knew something was wrong." And I told her to go
ahead and send it up to the terrorism division so they could do a risk
assessment also on this individual. She called me back a week later
and asked me who the person was in terrorism that she wanted me to
send a file up to. I told her who it was and then she said, "Not that
it matters." I said, "What do you mean?" She goes "Well the FBI hired
this language specialist and gave her a top secret SCI clearance." And
I thought, "Well this is unbelievable. This person’s father was a
known intelligence officer. We should not hire this person."
Well, anyway, a few weeks later we had an "un-sub" investigation,
which is an unknown subject investigation. We didn’t know who provided
the information, but somebody had provided a foreign government, the
same government [of the country] this woman was originally from,
provided them the information on what techniques the FBI was using
against that establishment in D.C. And I knew there was only a handful
of people that would have known that information, one was the language
specialist, one was the tech agent, the headquarters approving
official and the engineers who would have had to put that technique in
place. Those are the only people that would have known about that
specific item. We opened an "un-sub" investigation on that particular
matter and it just disappeared after 90 days.
Edmonds: And I would like to chip in here. He’s absolutely correct on
this because that particular language specialist worked three desks
from me.
[Laughter.]
Horton: You know I thought that story sounded a bit familiar there.
Edmonds: Yeah. I was familiar. In fact I reported it to the 9/11
Commission, I reported it to Congress, it was part of my report. It
was not, "Oh my God, I know who did 9/11!" It was, "Here are some
incidents that were very, very important that the FBI for various
reasons, not only did they not investigate but they also covered up."
This woman, her name is Hadia Roberts. And this is not John making it
public. Another reporter made it public four or five years ago and
nobody picked it up in the mainstream media because they didn’t want
to. She was from Pakistan. Her father worked for the ISI-Pakistan in
the military attaché here in Washington, D.C. under the Pakistani
embassy. And Hadia Roberts spoke two languages, Pashtun and Urdu. And
she was translating basically information gathered from her father’s
colleague, or bosses who were targets. And her father happens to work
and associate very closely with General Mahmud who’s name later on
became public after September 11th, the ISI general who was forced to
resign because of the certain possible involvements with 9/11 or some
of the hijackers. We don’t know the answer, I don’t pretend to know
the answers. But what I’m saying, the importance for the 9/11
commission, this is one of the reasons I went forward and reported it
was because this woman was his daughter. And she actually was
listening to, translating information coming from her father’s current
at the time and ex-colleague.
Horton: Sibel, am I right that that story is told in Joe Lauria and
the others’ series in the Sunday Times?
Edmonds: I’m not sure. It’s been a while.
Horton: Yeah, I’m trying to remember. Because that story has been
written about before too, with you as the source I believe, right?
Edmonds: Well that woman has been promoted since. Right now she’s in
the FBI’s headquarters, as she’s one of the entire Pakistani division,
while her father still goes in and out of Pakistan and is closely
associated with ISI.
Cole: I understand they also hired her son.
Edmonds: Correct. She actually brought in her son, who has just
graduated from M.I.T.
Horton: Well, John M. Cole, former FBI counterintelligence guy, how
can that possibly be that there’s a bunch of foreign agents inside the
FBI? I mean if your counterintelligence division can’t keep the FBI
clean, how are you guys supposed to be keeping anybody else out from
under the influence of foreign powers in this country?
Cole: Well exactly.
Horton: Oh, that was just a rhetorical question I guess, huh?
Cole: I’m serious. There was another issue too. I had a case that was
involving a former FBI translator that came to my attention. I was
working at the command center on the 9/11 thing and after I worked 12
hours up there, finished our shift up there, I went back to my desk
and somebody dropped this folder off on my desk and said, Mr. Cole, I
believe this belongs to you. And it was an espionage case. So I open
the case up and I start reviewing it and I think, "Well hell, this guy
should be arrested." Because there was sufficient evidence in there to
make an arrest. However the FBI management had it as a preliminary
inquiry, not a full investigation. And I’m thinking, "What the hell is
up with this?" So the first thing I did is I authorize a full
investigation on the subject. And I said, "I want you guys to work
this thing." Well I started getting a lot of resistance from FBI
headquarters from management. I took it to my supervisor and I asked
him, I said, "Why is this a P.I.? This should be a full investigation.
We have all kinds of information. We have a source that’s telling us
that this guy is giving them information, this translator is giving
this foreign official sensitive information on cases that we have and
so on and so forth. We also have a guy that worked undercover who was
giving us the information too and we also got it through other
techniques that we were using."
I wanted to take it to the US attorney and see if we had enough to
make the arrest. And I was told to stand down. And I said, "What do
you mean?" And my boss said, "Let me look at the case and let me see
what’s going on." Well I kept going back to him and saying, have you
had a chance to review the file. He says, well, I haven’t gotten to it
yet. Well two or three weeks went by. About the third week I went in
there and I said, "Listen, I sent this out as a full investigation,
I’m not getting any assistance here from the SAC [special agent in
charge] in the field office. He’s not working this thing. What’s going
on with this case?" And all I was told was not to worry about it, they
went ahead and sent the case to the espionage section in the
counterintelligence division. They said, "You know, you shouldn’t be
doing this anyway. We have an espionage section now that’s going to be
handling this." And that’s the last I heard of it. So the individual
basically committed espionage and got away with it.
The thing I didn’t understand – I think a lot of it has to do with
politics. When Bob Hansen was arrested for espionage, February 18th
[2001], the FBI director came out and stated that, this is terrible,
we’re making changes now to make sure that this never happens again.
Well after that the bureau didn’t want to make it look like they
weren’t doing their job basically, so anything that came up involving
an FBI employee they wanted to just go away, it seemed like. The thing
that Sibel brought up on the individual that was committing espionage
in the language area, they didn’t do anything with that individual.
The individual I brought to their attention they did nothing with. The
other individual I had a case on they did nothing with. And I think it
had to do with, they wanted to make sure, the bureau was getting a lot
of bad press and it has to do with politics. They did not want to come
out and say, "Oh, we still have problems within the FBI." I think
that’s the whole thing.
Edmonds: That’s a good point. And in some cases it has to do with
certain diplomatic sensitivities. For example, anything that dealt
with Israel or Turkey was completely hushed up and covered up. And
this was extremely frustrating for the field agents who worked with
the Turkish counterintelligence or Turkish related criminal cases
because they would try to get certain warrants which wouldn’t be
issued. In fact, the headquarters would shut down – wouldn’t renew –
some of the FISA permits. So they were very frustrated because they
knew, and this was common knowledge there, that because of the
interference by the White House and the State Department especially,
is that there was pressure not to pursue cases that involved Israel
and Turkey. It was as simple as that.
Horton: Well and John, you actually were quoted by Jeff Stein in
Congressional Quarterly saying that you know of 125 open cases of
Israeli espionage. I guess that means cases that were opened but then
never went anywhere. 125 different ones, is that right?
Cole: Well that was going back some years ago too. I don’t know what
it is now. But I worked that program in ‘93 to ‘95 and 125 is a very
conservative estimate. I mean there was more than that. And as far as
cases go, when I’m talking about cases it could have been on an
Israeli official who was here in the country, it could have been on an
Israeli owned business that was here in the country. I mean there’s a
lot of different aspects to anything involved in counterintelligence I
had a lot of investigations on Israeli cases. Let’s put it that way.
When I was working in that program from ‘93 to ‘95.
Horton: I’m sorry, it sounded like you were kind of diminishing the
125, even though you say that’s a conservative estimate, you say "That
could mean ‘a businessman came to town.’" It could mean nothing.
Cole: No, no, no. Sorry if it came across that way. No, that’s not
true. What I mean is we had more than that. I know of 125, there’s
probably more than that. Because I had over 300 ongoing investigations
at one time involving several different countries. But when I’m
talking about 125, that was full investigations. Not preliminary
inquiries or…
Edmonds: Right. So they are not some kind of innocent businessmen.
It’s the same thing with the Turkish counterintelligence and espionage
cases. And that is you may have seven heroin dealers in Chicago. Each
one of them would have, you know, it may be under one operation but
seven individuals will be targeted. You may have a group of business
people who get weapons technology related information here, they deal
with certain companies, and those companies issue false end user
certificates and they shipped, let’s say, these equipments to
countries that are not supposed to be getting those equipments because
they the certificate would show that it’s going to Turkey and we don’t
have the ban in Turkey. Although the recipients would be in, let’s
say, in Libya or it may be in Pakistan, or…. So there would be
hundreds of individuals involved. But again, the operation, the target
initially would be the foreign individuals. But the individuals who
actually committed the real espionage were not those people. Those
would be the Americans. That’s when you’re looking at all the nuclear
facilities, you’re looking at RAND Corporation, the Pentagon and State
Department.
Horton: Speaking of which Sibel, there’s obviously, as you well know,
a news story about you there at Military.com this week, and I think
this is breaking news, it’s the first time that anybody has gotten
Douglas Feith or Richard Perle to respond to your allegations against
them. Both of them, of course, denied it. It seems like that would be
a headline itself.
Edmonds: They are not actually denying it, they’re just calling me
names. They are not saying, "Oh, we did not engage in this." They’re
just saying, "Oh, this is absolutely crazy," and everything. That is
not exactly denying it.
Horton: That’s true. It is sort of a non-denial denial.
Cole: [Laughter.]
Edmonds: Surely. And it’s very typical of these individuals.
Horton: Well, please tell me everything you know about these
individuals. Everything you learned while at the FBI, not what you’ve
read about them since.
Edmonds: People have to go and read the magazine article and also
Military.com. But Perle since 1970 has come under direct FBI
investigation that I know of. I have had it confirmed by FBI agents –
since I left the FBI, not while I was working at the FBI – at least
four times. Four serious espionage cases. Just since 1970s. And this
was not even under Turkish – this was outside the Turkish
investigation. Turkish counterintelligence investigations. These were
all Israel. If you go you will see the documented cases on Douglas
Feith. Do you know how many times they have tried to suspend his top
security clearance while he was in the Pentagon? Go find it in records
because this is public record information. Again, that was on Israel
related counter-espionage cases. So these individuals, you’re looking
at Douglas Feith and Richard Perle. They have a pretty long track
record of these activities. They’ve been getting away with it. And
they’re going to get away with it. They are not the only ones. We have
so many others.
Horton: Well, now, what exactly are you saying that they did, Sibel?
Edmonds: They sell, they give, they pass to foreign agents from Turkey
and Israel, the most sensitive nuclear and conventional weapons
technology and also policy-related information. And those individuals,
not only the foreign individuals and the operatives not only use this
information for those states, Israel and Turkey, they also sell it in
the open market, to whoever is the highest bidder. This has been going
on for decades. It’s been going on at least since 1989. Just for the
Turkish counterintelligence
Horton: In the American Conservative article, as far as I can tell,
you only accuse Perle and Feith of collecting information on people to
compromise them, I think. You’re going much further than that now
aren’t you?
Edmonds: No. This is when they were outside the Pentagon. This was
during the years until 2000, when they were getting the names of these
people and their information, marital status, financial and they would
pass it to operatives to go and recruit them when they were not
providing their own firsthand. But these people, they provided
basically anything that were asked of them by these two countries.
Anything.
Cole: So they were committing espionage is what you’re saying.
Edmonds: Yes.
Horton: Well John, have you ever investigated Richard Perle?
Cole: I can’t tell you. I really can’t say. I can’t get into any
specific investigations that I was involved in. That would get me in
trouble.
Horton: Well, can you say whether you learned anything at the FBI,
such as you said before people told you that what Sibel Edmonds said
was right, that kind of thing. Anybody ever tell you that Richard
Perle was a spy?
Cole: No one came out and stated that exactly like that, but I’ll put
it this way: that name came up a few times. I’ll state that.
Horton: Okay. In the context of counterintelligence investigations?
Cole: Yes.
Horton: Sibel, you’re saying that these two men were involved in this
broader ring of pilfering nuclear secrets from I think you said the
Sandia and Lawrence Livermore Labs, both, is that right?
Edmonds: Individuals within those facilities were targeted, so they
were the ones who actually stole the information – whether they were
scientists, whether they were Air Force officers in a certain Air
Force base that was involved with nuclear weapons technology. And they
did it for peanuts. There were some people passing extremely
important, valuable information for as little as a few thousand
dollars when the going rate for this information was hundreds of
thousands of dollars.
Horton: And you’re saying it was Perle who was fencing this stuff?
Edmonds: He was one of the individuals. The person who was most active
with this was the State Department person who has been named, who was
named even before this article came out, Marc Grossman.
Horton: Yeah, he has indeed been named in a few different parts of
this. In fact another part of this story is, to some degree or another
at least Sibel, and I hope you can help me understand, the outing of
"Brewster Jennings." I believe some people have written, although I
don’t think this is correct, that this actually involved the outing of
Valerie Plame before…
Edmonds: No. It has nothing to do [with it]. I had not heard that name
until long after I left the FBI.
Horton: I thought that was the case. I wanted to make sure about that.
I believe you say though that Grossman, to some degree or another,
outed Brewster Jennings before Robert Novak outed Brewster Jennings.
That would be the CIA front company that Valerie Plame worked for.
Edmonds: Long before. Correct.
Horton: And can you tell us – I know you can’t say the name of the
phone company that the wire tap was through or anything like that, but
can you give us some context of how it is exactly that you know this?
Edmonds: American Turkish Council, and people can go and look it up. I
won’t eat up your time explaining the American Turkish Council is the
big, just like AIPAC even though they are not listed as lobbyists.
It’s a big lobby for business. And a lot of Turkish businessmen,
Turkish military-industrial complex related people, they are all part
of this. And the Americans, Northrop Grumman, Boeing…. So you can go
and check that site. So Brewster Jennings related, titled people,
people who introduce themselves as analysts for Brewster Jennings, as
a company, Brewster Jennings here in Virginia. They were frequenting
the American Turkish Council and certain people from the Turkish
business and combination of military interest people, they were
planning, they were in touch with Brewster Jennings and the American
Turkish Council, and they had government business of course. And they
were planning to hire Brewster Jennings to be the intermediary for
some of the operations they were involved in. Some of them legal
purchases, but some of them – the legal purchases or the legal
operations were a front to do their illegal nuclear related operation.
And they were trying to basically hire Brewster Jennings. And this had
gone to the State Department person who was, somebody else named him.
Marc Grossman. And Marc Grossman specifically contacted, and I can’t
tell you whether it was fax, e-mail, phone or any of that, a very high
level person in the Turkish diplomatic community and told that person
"Do not do this, do not hire them, they are the government front. They
are a front for the government."
Horton: So you’re saying that for example, if I could try to put words
in your mouth here Sibel, you can clarify them. It sounds like you’re
being pretty clear that he did not sort of, you know, mention, "Oh
yeah, you know Brewster Jennings is a CIA front" to somebody over
lunch at the country club and that’s how the secret got out. He went
and deliberately gave warning.
Edmonds: Yes. It was a deliberate warning. Because prior to that
discussion he must have received that information, that they were
about to hire because he specifically said, this company Brewster
Jennings is a front for the government and you just stay away from
them. And the recipient of that information made follow-up
communication arrangements with other nations. Intelligence operatives
here within the United States and passed that information to them. "Do
not touch Brewster Jennings, they are a front for the government." And
this happened in August of 2001. It was towards the end of August 2001
and the agents, they passed this information to the appropriate
division. I guess it would be CIA. And it was dismantled. That company
was dismantled. So there was no such a thing that she was working for
that company she was at. That company didn’t exist. Has not existed
for years. Or at least a year or so.
Horton: And you learned that while you were still at the FBI, that
they had already taken the thing down before Bob Novak ever said
anything about it?
Edmonds: It was third-hand information. Because the agent that I
worked with for that particular division, he sent this information to
the FBI’s counterespionage division and then the headquarters people,
then it was their job to notify the appropriate agency. In this case
my guess is it would be the CIA – because I didn’t even know it was
CIA. It could have been the Department of Energy. What he told me was
that they took the appropriate action and they notified the agency and
basically they cover it up. Now they have to do, this is what he
referred to as a "damage assessment." Because whoever was the agency,
which in this case now it was the CIA, they have to do a damage
assessment to see if there were any cover, any people who were
compromised as a result of it already.
Horton: And you also heard tell then, third hand information even,
that as a result of that damage assessment the CIA closed Brewster
Jennings down?
Edmonds: I’m not sure if CIA as an agency was used, just the fact that
cover front operation was dismantled and after it was dismantled they
were doing damage assessments. It was dismantled, then they were doing
damage assessments. It was, according to the agent who told me, it
would take almost a year to do damage assessment because they were
very bureaucratic with it at the agency.
Horton: All right, John M. Cole, former FBI counterintelligence agent
here, is she right that this country is crawling with Turkish and
Israeli spies and American citizens who participate in their efforts
to pilfer our nuclear weapons secrets, and that this is continuing? I
guess you’re implying at least, that nobody ever stopped it, that it
apparently continues to this day? What is going on here?
Cole: I’d like to think that wasn’t the case, but it’s a fact. I mean
it’s not just the Israelis and the Turks. There’s other foreign
governments that are also here gathering and collecting intelligence.
Horton: Well now if the Russians were stealing hydrogen bomb things
you guys would stop them, right?
Cole: Oh, yeah. We hope. [Laughter.] We hope. And when I was in the
bureau and we had investigations on, like I said, on the Israelis and
the Turks also, the thing with that is, and let me just clarify
something, a lot of times when we run an investigation on a foreign
national, especially if that individual has diplomatic immunity, a lot
of times the American public don’t hear what happens, but a lot of
times we’ll find that person was doing something, that they weren’t
supposed to here. Then they wind up getting T&G out of the country and
that’s the end of it. There’s no arrest made for example. The arrests
come if the person is a U.S. citizen that is providing information to
that foreign government and is committing espionage.
Horton: Like Larry Franklin.
Cole: Right.
Horton: You know, years ago John, Sibel said to me, "You know, a lot
of these cases are all one big onion. You need to start peeling the
different layers." And I don’t think she was saying that she was privy
to all these different investigations but that they all clearly
involve a lot of the same players. And it was interesting to me to
note that Larry Franklin in his interview with the Forward said – of
course he was accusing the FBI of being a bunch of anti-Semites, and I
guess I’ll let you speak to that if you want to bother defending
yourself from that spurious charge – But as proof, he was saying that
they were going after all of his buddies at the Pentagon, meaning
Perle, Feith and the guys that ran the Office of Special Plans and so
forth. It looks like the FBI agents going after those guys, if what
Larry Franklin says is true, were certainly stifled into getting the
lowest man on the totem pole on that.
Cole: Well I can say that the case agents, the guys that go out there
and do their investigations and make the arrests, the field agent,
they want to get out there and they want to do what they can to make
sure that no one is committing espionage. And if they are they want to
make sure that they’re arrested. And that’s the way it normally goes.
The problem being is that a lot of times they get upset because
they’re not allowed to do their job. FBI headquarters, somebody at
headquarters, normally on the 7th floor in the executive level,
they’re the ones that are directing him to say, "Okay, we’ve got to
stop this," or "We’ve got to let this one go," or whatever. And a lot
of it has to do with political reasons. If we went out and arrested a
bunch of people who were spying for Israel, then all of a sudden we’re
the bad guys. We’re "anti-Semitic" and this, that and the other thing.
Just for doing their job basically. That’s not the case. We go out and
do investigations on anybody who commits espionage. It just so happens
since Israel is such a good ally, close ally with us, that a lot of
times things are overlooked. Just, "Oh well, they made a mistake. No
big deal." And unfortunately that’s the case.
Edmonds: And this despite the fact that these people, these
operatives, whether Turkish or Israeli, not only that they use it for
themselves but they also pass it to their people or for money, for
just black market model to any country that pays for it. They deal it.
They deal it as dealers. So whether or not they are our allies, the
individual operators also have their own leeway of what to do. "Yeah,
I did it for my government, but I can also go ahead on the side and
make cash with this." And that’s jeopardizing American security. And
it’s not really outsiders. The American security is being jeopardized
by certain Americans. And these secrets that we have, a lot of these
secrets are from the American public, not from those foreign people
we’re trying to protect these secrets from, because they have access.
It’s just the American people that are in the dark. And as far as the
"anti-Semitism" is concerned, I mean a lot of agents were just so
disgusted with this card being played over and over. And I’m happy to
see that since they have played this card so much, the number of
disgusted individuals is increasing. So I feel bad for people who are
not engaged, you know, that they are from the Jewish religion and they
are not engaged, because they are being victimized by those who use
this propaganda of using constantly "anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism."
Because it’s backfiring on all of them, and it’s going to.
Cole: Well you’ve got to understand also, there’s a huge lobby in the
U.S., Israeli lobby in the U.S. too. And they put a lot of pressure on
politicians and other people also.
Edmonds: Right. They would have to arrest half of our United States
Congress. So that would present a dilemma.
Horton: Now hold on right there. Because there is a big difference
isn’t there, between knowing that you need the lobby’s support to run
for Congress and so therefore voting in a pro-Israel way and being, I
don’t know, Jane Harman or someone who commits a quote, unquote,
"completed crime," and agreeing to obstruct justice and break the law,
right?
Edmonds: No, but there’s a middle ground, Scott. You know it better
than anyone else, or better than many people, and that is, they pass a
lot of legislation that affects our foreign policy and what we do and
the decisions we make.
Horton: Sure.
Edmonds: It may not be Jane Harman passing, or Dennis Hastert only
passing information. But just by legislating alone or by sanctioning
or approving certain operations, by approving funds for certain
operations they also can serve the interest of another country by
compromising and sacrificing our foreign policy, our troops, our
people’s lives.
Horton: Again, this is where we get to that line, and you’re right,
it’s certainly a gray thing when you talk about the law and policy.
And when policy is to break the law, then how is it supposed to work
in any of this? It all kind of falls apart. But there clearly is a
difference though – right? – between making an agreement to commit a
felony with agents of the Mossad versus being just a run of the mill
Congressman who knows he basically has to vote pro-Israel to keep his
job.
Edmonds: Well sure. But even if they are not engaged in espionage
activities directly. Let’s say with Tom Lantos that was not the case.
Tom Lantos never considered himself to be an American. Never did. This
was a known fact by all the agents, not only from the Turkish
department but from the Israeli counterintelligence desk, again, which
was all operated from the same Washington field office. But outside
that you had congressman, not only to get these funds but to get them
illegally. And also let certain facilitators lobby people to be
intermediaries to launder money and get rid of their footprint so that
they can get that foreign money even though these Congressional people
knew it was coming directly from let’s say foreign governments. So
knowingly accepting that it’s either considered not only unethical but
criminal because the reason they’re trying to get it off the footprint
is because it is criminal.
Horton: Yeah. Well and for example after David Rose’s piece in Vanity
Fair back in 2005. In fact I guess in that article, they talked about
how he and his team of lawyers and whoever, they went and checked and
they could see how Dennis Hastert had raised hundreds of thousands of
dollars, far higher than the average of any other congress people, in
the very smallest payments, $199 and less, that don’t have to have a
name attached to them.
Edmonds: Exactly.
Horton: Which, you know, wasn’t solid proof necessarily, but was a
pretty strong clue that what you had been saying about how he had been
paid off was right. That clearly, you know, when we’re talking about a
briefcase full of cash, that’s clearly criminal behavior there I
think.
Edmonds: That solid proof came later. In 2007 he resigned and
immediately he signed up as a lobbyist for the government of Turkey.
He is a registered foreign agent. So he is registered under FARA. This
is after he got out of Congress. This was right after he got out of
Congress. And now he’s receiving the known number of $35,000 a month,
per month, from directly of the government of Turkey. This is the rest
of the thank you that has to go from the government of Turkey to
Dennis Hastert. And he was bold enough to do it without even a blink.
He basically got out of Congress and registered himself as an agent of
the government of Turkey.
Horton: We’ve left poor John M. Cole out of the conversation for a
little while here. John, let me give you a chance to address anything
you think should have been addressed in this interview that I didn’t
get to, as far as helping the people in the audience kind of
understand how serious this is, what we’re up against. And I guess I’d
like to give you a chance to call for prosecution as you were quoted
as doing on Peter Collins’s show a few weeks ago.
Cole: Well I guess what I have to say is that, I think Sibel is right
in that I think a majority of Americans want to know the truth, what’s
going on. I think a lot of Americans are just fed up with all the
scandal in the government. There needs to be accountability, there
needs to be better oversight. And that’s just not happening. And
that’s the whole point I have in my book is that here are some issues
that come up, this is what’s happened and no one is being held
accountable for their actions. I think that’s a big thing here. I
think there needs to be accountability. The media doesn’t want to
discuss it or print it in their papers because if it goes into the
paper, what I noticed, and John Drake was a [unintelligible]
investigator once told me, he goes, "You know it will go in the paper
one day, it will be a big uproar that day and then the next day
everybody forgets about it." And that seems to be the case. It’s
gotten to the point in our country though, it’s become so divided now
that I think everybody is fed up and they want to know the truth,
what’s going on. I think there needs to be some sort of outlet for the
people to find out exactly what is going on. What is the truth and
hold these people accountable. If somebody commits a crime in this
country they should be arrested and they should be prosecuted.
There’re a lot of people getting away with a lot of things in this
country. It’s just not right.
Horton: Which reminds me of what you said to Peter Collins, as quoted
at the BradBlog. People "getting away with murder" you said. And in
fact Brad was over here for an interview in the studio and we went
back and we listened to the audio of that part of the interview just
to make sure that you really earned those italics where he put them in
the quote and so forth. And yeah, it sure did sound to my ear like you
were not talking about, "Boy, they get away with blue, bloody murder."
It sounded like you were talking about was "Yeah, they get away with
murdering people."
Cole: I didn’t mean it in that respect. What I mean by that is it
seems like you have officials who are high up in our government that
do things that are so farfetched, I mean so illegal and then no one
touches them. No one wants to pursue it for whatever reason.
Horton: So what you did mean is they get away with blue, bloody
murder, but not in the literal sense.
Cole: Exactly. I hope not literal.
Horton: Not as far as you know.
Cole: As far as I know, no.
Horton: So the book, John M. Cole, While America Sleeps, an FBI
Whistleblower’s Story. That’s on the shelves available now, right?
Cole: I believe so, yes.
Edmonds: It’s a great book. It’s sincere and this is what Americans
will get. It is sincerely written, none of those entertaining touched
up by hundreds of people kind of a book. They will get to hear John
Cole.
Cole: Well what I’m hoping is it makes a change. I think people need
to know what’s going on and they need to wake up. Our country, we need
to wake up and take care of these issues before another 9/11 occurs or
before something else happens in our country. If we don’t, something
will definitely happen again, because there’s so many things that need
to be changed. And there’s people that need to be held accountable. If
that doesn’t happen then we’re in a world of trouble.
Horton: Well my understanding is that the publisher sent one on its
way to me. So I hope to read it and have you back on the show to
discuss the book in detail soon John.
Cole: I appreciate that.
Horton: I think there’s a point that can be made here, which is a news
story in itself really, which is that you’re starting a new news site
with your own in-house reporters, including two that I hold in very
high esteem, Peter Lance and Joe Lauria, to start. Tell us all about
that Sibel.
Edmonds: Right. I have contract arrangements with several seasoned
veterans, with proven track record investigative journalists. These
people as you know, Joe Lauria, Peter Lance, or in this case also
Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald. These people have been doing the
real investigative work stories for many, many years. Because I’ve
found out that there are these reporters who are disenfranchised
because they are disgusted with the mainstream media, some of them are
even being booted out with the cutbacks. But they don’t like the
pseudo alternative media. You can go and list some of the popular
ones, they get nauseated even by their names, and I understand. So
they don’t feel like they have a home. They want to do work, but they
don’t want to be driven with that partisanship, you know. I’m suddenly
an editor or reporter. I have an e-mail account and I have a cell
phone. I can call and say, give me a comment. I’m a reporter. I
report. So I have been talking to these individuals. I have been
talking with some really good authors and their names will come out
after we have the contract from the editorial people who want to have
this option and say, "Okay, let’s try together, and Sibel, we are
willing to produce this." Now let’s find out if the American people,
especially those who have been as disgusted as I have been with the
current state of this media, what we have available, will support it.
Because you don’t need a really huge gigantic budget. You’re not going
to try everything for everyone. You can’t be everything for everyone.
That’s when you get Michael Jackson mixed up with the Jane Harman
story.
[Laughter.]
Horton: Yeah.
Edmonds: Right.
Horton: All right, say the name of the Web site. When is this thing’s
grand opening here, this new press project of yours?
Edmonds: I think the web site will be completed by the early part of
next week. And the site address is BoilingFrogsPost.com.
[Laughter.]
It’s BoilingFrogsPost.com because that’s what we are. And it’s the
home of the irate minority, because I am one, and I have been hearing
from a lot of people who consider themselves the irate minority. So
over there we will be the majority. So we’ll end up ruling. It will be
a great place to be and gather.
Horton: That sounds like a lot of fun. Hopefully there’ll be barbecue
and everything too.
Cole: That sounds great.
Horton: All right. Well I thank you both very much for your time. I
hope we can do it again.
Cole: Thank you so much.
Edmonds: Thank you, Scott.
Horton: All right, everybody, that is Sibel Edmonds, former FBI
contract-translator-turned whistleblower. She’s the head of the
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. BoilingFrogsPost.com, I
think she said, will be up soon, and check out JustACitizen.com and
123RealChange.BlogSpot.com.
"[Real] scientists are *fiercely* independent. That's the good
news."-- NIH's Top Fool, Anthony Fauci