Jim Lawler (00:01.34)
Hello, you’re listening to the Steady State Sentinel from the Steady State. I’m Jim Lawler, a former senior CIA operations officer, and I’ve worked some of the most sensitive counterproliferation and espionage cases in the agency’s history. Today I’m delighted to be joined by my friend Jeff Stein, who has covered the intelligence community for over 40 years. And earlier this year, he beat back a $1 million defamation suit.
From a Trump administration official over his reporting, and we’re going to discuss that. Jeff is the founding editor-in-chief of Spy Talk, an independent Substack Outlet newsletter and podcast, which covers U.S. intelligence, defense, and foreign policy, and it’s six years old this month. Before going independent in 2020, he wrote the Spy Talk column at Newsweek and the Washington Post, and earlier founded the CQ Homeland Security at Congressional Quarterly.
where the column began. He’s the author of three books, including A Murder in Wartime and Saddam’s Bomb Maker. From 1968 to 1969, Jeff served as a case officer with the 525th MI group in Vietnam, running a network of spies against communist forces and was awarded a bronze star. He’s spent more than four decades, as I’ve said, covering the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the machinery of American national security.
Jeff, we’re delighted to have you on today.
Jeff (01:29.496)
Jim, it’s an honor to be here. Thank you.
Jim Lawler (01:31.846)
Well, it’s rare that we have a veteran journalist who’s covered the intelligence community who’s also a very distinguished former intelligence officer. So I’m I’m just really honored to have you on. I always say Jeff Stein is the kind of guy, when he walks into the room, I feel compelled to stand up. So
Jeff (01:50.382)
Not for long.
Jim Lawler (01:53.245)
So so Jeff, walk us through what it actually felt like getting served with that summons, that million dollar lawsuit, and what made you confident from the start that the underlying reporting would hold up.
Jeff (02:06.818)
Well, I was actually outside cleaning my front porch, brushing refuse off the you know, broken branches and stuff off my front porch and this guy walks up. It was Martin Luther King’s birthday holiday and he handed me a subpoena. and I took it inside. I was very curious about it, and I unfolded it and
realized it was from this guy who I totally forgotten about, who I had written about a year earlier because I was tipped by some friends in the intelligence community that this guy, was Keith Bath is his name, who had been the CIA’s medical office of medical services director, had been nominated to become the Pentagon’s Health Service Director.
and so that was the peg for a story because this person told me that he was a terrible manager of the of the OMS and had been forced out. And I confirmed that with other members of the intelligence community who were familiar with the official, and with sources on Capitol Hill. so it was solid and I wrote the story that he had been effectively fired. he didn’t like it.
But he waited a year. I mean the time had almost run out for him to file the suit and to serve me. so I read through it and I thought, well, this is entirely baseless because I knew I was very confident about my facts, and also that, you know, it’s a very high bar to sue the media because of our cherished First Amendment. You you really have to go a long way to prove that a reporter intentionally
intentionally and carelessly defamed you. I did neither. So I just stated his record and quoted people who had who were very knowledgeable of how he ran the OMS. And I must say I w I I wasn’t even cognizant at the time and did not refer to his running of the White House medical office under Biden and Trump and
Jeff (04:24.939)
that that was during the period when Dr. Feelgood there, Ronnie Jackson, was handing out pills to people without prescriptions. I ha I you know, again, I I was not an expert on this person and his history. So anyway, that w you know, I just thought it was still my initial reaction is this is ridiculous and it’s silly, no problem. But you know, as time
settles in and you think you have a couple of days to think about, you’ve been sued for a million dollars. Suddenly think, Well, you gotta get serious about this So
Jim Lawler (05:01.348)
Yeah, w it woke you up, I’m sure. I mean, okay, this is clearly nuisance litigation, but you know, nuisance litigation against journalists, that seems to be a growing tool of pressure specifically from within this administration, or is do you think it’s broader than this?
Jeff (05:17.035)
Well, it can’t get much broader than it already is. I mean, Trump s sues everybody. you know, the Wall Street Journal ef and and the New York Times and the most recently the BBC, which is a very interesting case because the BBC is moving for discovery against Trump and of course they didn’t want they don’t want to have to give up any of their financial or political records. So that’s a really interesting case to case to follow.
I I wondered why Keith Bass, the official who sued me, why he did it actually. I mean, I found out I again I had forgotten about him after I wrote the story, but I quickly did the research and found out that he actually got the job at the Pentagon. So how I how had I wounded him? There were n how no damages. I don’t think he ever missed a meal. I mean, after he left the CIA, his friend Ronnie Jackson, the former White House doctor,
Jim Lawler (06:04.902)
So there was no damage. There was no damage, you’re right.
Jeff (06:15.805)
gate got him a job at the West Texas VA system. and then h he gets nominated for this Pentagon job and he got that job. So where were the damages? so yeah, I I thought it was a nuisance suit, but I had to take it seriously and thank God. Substack has a legal defenders program.
Jim Lawler (06:38.544)
Yeah, maybe you can tell our listeners what that what that means. That here you were faced with a million dollar lawsuit, gosh knows what the litig the defense expenses, the legal expenses would cost. Tell us a little bit how basically did you contact Substack or did they contact you? How did that work?
Jeff (06:57.261)
Well, actually I was aware of their defenders program because I had a couple of years ago r asked them for guidance or review of a story we were about to publish about a Trump administration official and I thought it was kind of a you know, in murky legal waters. I wanted to make sure we didn’t have any language that was defamatory or out of line. and so they reviewed it for me. So I was f very familiar with them on that.
Jim Lawler (07:00.242)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff (07:26.997)
so I wrote to them a couple of days after I was served and they said they would consider my application. I explained exactly what was going on, of course, and they wrote back a few days later and they said we’ve accepted your case and we are farming it out to a law firm we deal with in Virginia that does pro bono work well, pro bono for the
the defendant, me. but they were but Substack will pick up the legal bills and believe me they mount v highly very quickly. So I got these great lawyers in Arlington, Virginia to defend me who wrote these brilliant briefs contesting the suit. And ultimately of course we won and the case was dismissed with prejudice.
Jim Lawler (08:19.75)
That’s that’s great. Just an aside about this official who sued you, was he in charge of the medical office at CIA during the Havana syndrome?
Jeff (08:29.013)
Yeah, d you know, that’s been well that’s been ongoing, you know, sh so but yeah, he was and and during COVID as well. And according to my sources and and reporting in the New York Times as well, Bill Burns, the director of CIA at the time, personally forced out mister Bass. and as I wrote in my story.
So he was criticized for his handling of both those issues.
Jim Lawler (09:03.302)
Well, the reason the way he handled it is he he ignored the people who were claiming that they’d been hurt, including our dear friend Mark Polypoulos and a lot of other CIA officers who were genuinely injured and yet OMS at the time was just ignoring it, saying this was mass hysteria, it’s imaginary. Well it wasn’t. So
Jeff (09:23.371)
Yeah, you know, Havan syndrome’s still a mystery. we we don’t have any, you know, uncontested facts about it except that people are falling ill. I’ve read I’ve and I’ve been told that the IC obtained a device allegedly used by the Russians, a mobile device that can inflict these energy beams, let’s call them, on victims.
and and my question is why don’t they produce you know, show it to us?
Jim Lawler (09:57.713)
Yeah, yeah, good good point. So you’ve covered the intelligence community for more than four decades. Where do you see the sharpest departure from past practice inside of the CIA, Department of Defense, or the intelligence community writ large under this particular administration? What do you see as the departure from past practices?
Jeff (10:18.987)
Yeah, that’s that’s that’s the question, isn’t it, today in the IC. let’s not be naive about this. the president appoints the CIA director, and that is a person who is in tune with the president’s views, whether Democrats or Republicans. The departure here is the really raw mass firings of people in the IC who merely or were professionals who merely served in senior positions during
the Biden or Obama administrations. They were classified as cut the enemy, the enemy within the so-called deep state. and they came in and just took a buzzaw, including when senior intelligence advisors at ODNI wrote a report about this the Trump allegations about the Venezuelan drug gang Trendiagua
that w it was a deliberate campaign to invade the United States. and the and the advisory council said, no, that’s not we don’t have any evidence of that. We don’t think that’s true. so w what did Tulsi Gabber do? She fired them all. So we just haven’t seen anything like that. we we saw I’m old enough to remember JFK, although I wasn’t covering the intelligence community, but he was so pissed off
at the CIA and Allen Dulles for the Bay of Pigs disaster that he cl he he forced a house cleaning then. Jimmy Carter’s CIA director, Admiral Turner, did a kind of a reckless house cleaning of all case officers after the Vietnam War. so we we’ve had these sorts partis I wouldn’t say they were partisan, they were organizational
Jim Lawler (11:56.188)
Tono.
Jeff (12:13.013)
reorganizations because of policy issues. But this is very different. This is pe this is firing people because they merely served under democratic administrations. And that is a radical departure, unheard of.
Jim Lawler (12:28.526)
Absolutely. And so we’ve seen these purges of these very skilled professionals. What do you think the operational cost is of that? And also let’s discuss the counterintelligence cost of
Jeff (12:42.209)
Well, I did a story about that back in twenty twenty five actually. and the headline of my piece was FBI D O J CIA political purchase create security nightmare. And I quoted a number of IC officials, some by names, some anonymous not anonymous to me, but didn’t want their names used. But one of the most interesting people I quoted was David Charney.
Who’s a Virginia based psychiatrist who who has a heavy practice in the intelligence and military communities? and he’s he’s been chosen to interview famous turncoats like Alder James and Hansen, the FBI Russian mole. And I asked him on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst, how much greater
is the ins the insider security threat today than it was before the Trump slash Musk purge. He said it’s not much more than one and a half or two on the ten point scale because virtually all the people working in the IC are actually very loyal and patriotic and decent people. They’re not going to blame the country. They do have a value system that’s very solid. But he said echoing the views of of a another prominent
CIA Mole hunter years ago, he said it’s an actuarial certainty that some small percent of them, for whatever reason, will just cross the line and sell out their country at any given time. So even though it’s a tiny percentage, he added, if the recent firings bump the percenta the percentage liable to committing treason up to one point two five or one point five percent, that’s enough to be alarming when you’re thic when you’re considering, you know, h
Thousands of people have been fired, so w one and a half percent of those is alarming.
Jim Lawler (14:38.822)
That’s absolutely true. As a former case officer, that’s what I always looked for, people who were stressed out and unhappy. You don’t recruit happy people. I in fact I’d say that most of my recruitments involve some factor of revenge in these people’s minds when I recruited them as spies. So let’s talk about the politicization of the intelligence product itself. How worried are you about this, the way that analysts you mentioned earlier the
Venezuelan issue, but analysts that are shading assessments to fit a preferred narrative. How dangerous do you see that?
Jeff (15:11.98)
It’s very dangerous. A lot of people are like at the G S twelve or thirteen, even maybe fourteen level. They’ve got say a dozen years in at their agency, CIA, NSA, FBI, whatever, they got kids in college, they got a mortgage they’re still paying off. So these stresses are absolutely real.
can they afford to buck the system and be fired? And I’ve interviewed n numerous former intelligence community people who say the pressure was immense and excruciating because they couldn’t afford to quit over principle. Or if they did, it was a it was a really s sacrifice to to leave the secure federal employment and
go out there looking for jobs with thousands of others who have been fired. Whole agencies have been eliminated like the USAID. so you’ve got you got lots of people out there competing for jobs and and when an official is confronted with an order to slant a report or do things like get involved in ballot counting in Georgia
as Tulsi Gabbard did. She went down to Florida and got involved in ballot policing or whatever you want to call it. not the the province of the national defense national intelligence office at all. It’s really an excruciating situation. So and we every week we we hear new stories of
people f facing excruciating challenges.
Jim Lawler (17:06.234)
Well, this is always the crisis of an any intelligence officer. You know, you’re told to speak truth to power, you know, the book of John, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free, which is inscribed in the entry hall of CIA. And there are such so many historical examples of failures, not of intelligence, but failures of leadership to insist upon the truth. And that includes our adversaries. Look at Stalin ignoring the signs that Nazi Germany was going to attack in nineteen forty one.
Jeff (17:28.664)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Lawler (17:35.174)
He disregarded that much to his cost later. And and our own our own intelligence community when they’ve ignored intelligence event well you were in Vietnam and you remember the the body counts and they were you know the White House wanted to hear good news and so that’s that’s always a road to to failure and doom.
Jeff (17:55.788)
Yeah. I had a a very personal encounter with that politicization in Vietnam is one of the reasons I decided not to stay in the army and they believe me, they made very lucrative offers to those of us who were trained as case officers ’cause they spent so much time training us. but the the headquarters got in the way of my intelligence analysis and I
I just thought it was completely politicization and and left. So, you know, it goes on and it’s not necessarily partisan, it’s organizational, top down management. but we’re losing very good people. most recently we had on our podcast and now she’s been at the Atlantic and so on, Julia Curley
Telling her story. when we had her on our part spy talk podcast a couple of weeks ago, we just talked about she talked about the disarray. She was a senior intelligence analyst at CIA. She was a presidential and vice presidential briefer. She had an office at the White House through Democratic and Trump administrations. and she was highly, highly valued, including by Mike Pence.
her story, which we did not know this part of the story when we interviewed her, but she she came out, so to speak, in the Atlantic revealing that she was trans. and so and and even after Mike Pence, who’s, you know, very anti woke, let’s put it that way, when he learned about it, he said, Well, Julia, I really appreciate your work. You know, you’re one of my most valuable briefers. I’m not quoting exactly, but that’s what he said. But
once it became once it got around that she was trans, they they fired her, right, forced her out. And so, you know, the the burden has fallen most heavily on women, it seems, just like Trump attacks women reporters in the Oval Office in his daily press gatherings. so and and we’ve seen the Pete Heggseth pursue senior
Jeff (20:11.741)
generals who were black or women and admirals and forced them out. They were due for promotions and they got forced out. So I’ll leave it to others to brand this, to give this a name. I’m not gonna do it. I’m just gonna state the facts of what we see going on. It can’t be good. and I as an example I give you the the Iran war, which we’ve really
I’m very troubled, as many of us are, about where we are with the Iran war. They seem to have s Trump by the short hairs. he I’m not sure if he realizes it or not. but what he realizes what really worries me is that since there’s no easy conventional option, he’s not gonna send ground troops into Iran. I’m pretty sure of that. I think we’d go back to the days of Vietnam would be mass sit ins and demonstrations.
to derail any ground troop invasion of Iran would be I mean the whole war is very unpopular now, but ground troops so he doesn’t really have that option. What the he he claims to own the Strait of Hormuz, but actually the Iranians own it. It was open before the war started. so I get worried that he might try and drop a nuclear weapon.
out in the Iranian desert, which of course would not stay in the Iranian desert. radioactivity would spill over several regions. It’s i it’s an incredibly fraught situation. And he you know, everybody knew that one of the the Iranians, certainly American intelligence has told several presidents that if they attacked Iran
one of the Iranians responses would be to close off most likely responses would be to close off the g the Strait of Hormuz. Apparently he just brushed that aside. He seems to be me mesmerized by Benjamin Netanyahu. they had this really ridiculous plan that they were gonna have Kurds march in from the north and the west
Jeff (22:30.913)
that spontaneous uprisings would happen and overthrow of the regime. I mean it was a fantasy. And and any intelligence dividor would have told him that. In fact, according to links we’ve seen, J.D. Vance and and and and officials at CIA and elsewhere told him that this is really ridiculous. But he went ahead anyway. So what do you do with a president who doesn’t want to consume
intelligence ’cause it doesn’t fit his prejudices. That’s new.
Jim Lawler (23:04.144)
Yeah, and I I think you I think you publicized something recently about the new head of Mossad who fired two senior Mossad actually several Muss senior Mossad officials who came up with this lunatic scheme of the Kurds in vi invading, kind of like an Iranian bay of pigs. They were quite a I mean it’s close analogy there that they were going to go in and overthrow the current regime. So let’s go back let’s go back to your your legal case and the kind of pressure that brought on you. I mean I’m sure
Jeff (23:21.089)
Hm. Yeah, that’s good.
Jeff (23:28.365)
Yeah.
Jim Lawler (23:34.064)
During the time between the time you got the subpoena and the time you had the assurance from Substack that you’re going to have legal representation and then the time when the judge basically dismissed the case with prejudice, you must have felt a lot of pressure on you. And tell me you know, w what type this type of pressure on national security reporters or any kind of journalists these days. What’s what’s your feelings about this?
Jeff (23:58.357)
Well, that’s an interesting question. Emotionally I went from dismissive to very serious and worried about it because there’s nothing like walking into a federal courthouse. You know, federal courthouses are designed architecturally to present the majesty of the law, right? They’re large, they’re almost cathedral like in in many cases. And that’s the case for the Eastern District of Virginia.
federal court in Alexandria. And so you walk into that courtroom and you know all the assembled court personnel are there, the scenographers, the court guards, the US marshals and so on, and then the judge, you enters and all rise. You know you’re in some serious business at that point and you don’t know how the ball is gonna bounce. Even if you’re intellectually or psychologically, you know,
in a place where you say, Well this c this suit can’t proceed because it’s so baseless and fraught. but you suddenly you know you’re aware that i it could go against you or it could extend into a trial. and and already this has cost tens of thousands of dollars just to get to this point. So it’s you get very s somber and sober about the prospects of it. And and of course, Trump officials
just sue on a dime. and I think they take their cue from the president himself who’s who has sued virtually everybody and threatened virtually everybody and look what happened at CBS. CBS Say again, Jim. Yeah and they caved, right. And what’s gonna happen if they take over CNN? I mean
Jim Lawler (25:38.566)
Well they c they caved in. I said they caved in.
Jeff (25:50.475)
This is serious business. Trump loses virtually all of his suits. I think he y he has lost I think all of his suits against the media and reporters. But it that’s not the point. He he just he takes a cue from his mentor Roy Cohn, the famous McCarthyist lawyer back in the Cold War, who who who taught him how to dismiss, reject, deny
and counterattack on on ev every time he’s displeased. So that’s what Trump does. And I I wondered why Keith Bass had taken this extraordinary step to sue me, which costs him a lot of money too. maybe he was bankrolled by somebody else. Those those records aren’t public. But I thought maybe he just woke up one morning and said, Well the president just sued somebody. Maybe I should do that too you know, a copycat kind of suit.
because it had very little chance of succeeding. so they’re they just sue everybody. They sued my colleague Michael Izikov when he was reporting for the Daily Beast. A a a political a senior political advisor, Chris Latavida sued him and Daily Beast and it i eventually it was dismissed with prejudice. But again
These are nightmares to go through. they’re very expensive and worrisome trials.
Jim Lawler (27:21.116)
You know, I I I couldn’t agree more with you, Jeff, but I have a feeling, knowing you as I do, that regardless of whether it was a million dollar lawsuit or a ten million dollar lawsuit, this is not going to inhibit you from pursuing the truth about national security matters. But but what about what about other national security journalists, or even more importantly, how do you think this affects your sources? Are they more hesitant to talk than they were, say, five years ago?
Jeff (27:47.628)
They’re more careful, for sure. I’ve not only experienced this but ha so have my spy talk colleagues. they in many cases and this has always been true to some extent, y y you really have to almost go back to the underground garage mode, meeting on benches mode. People do not want to talk on the phone. they we have signal.
now, which is encrypted, but we all suspect that the government has found a way to penetrate signal. So even there you have to be careful. And so you go, you make arrangements to meet people for coffee or lunch, or a drink, out in what we call spook land out in Northern Virginia. and and that’s what we have to do. go very very softly
and quietly because people are are really and and these are not current officials even, these are these are retirees or people who have been forced out. they’re the Trump administration is looking to sue people who talk to the media. They they’re they have these leak hunts going on all the time. And that terrifies people.
And it not o I mean, it not only disrupts their work, you know, to be brought in for a polygraph, for example, i i that’s very scary to people, because the polygraphers, if they’re so ordered, they can delve into any kind of subject. You know, what do you think about President Obama? What do you what do you think about the President’s foreign policy? You know, questioning it goes well beyond did you leak this
information to a New York Times reporter or a spy talk reporter for that matter. so they’re very, very careful, yeah.
Jim Lawler (29:48.327)
Yeah, and let’s make a distinction for our listeners. There’s a difference between divulging classified information and simply giving background information that’s not classified. And I think most of my colleagues, former colleagues, would not talk to a journalist and give them classified information. And in fact, all of the responsible, all of the national security journalists I know will withhold what they think is classified information if they think it’s going to hurt national security. So there’s a big difference.
between what people are accusing national security journalists of doing and and what’s really out there.
Jeff (30:24.661)
Yeah, d but but to be candid, sometimes we are given classified information or told of classified information. I I I can’t recall ever seeing a a classified document. I mean I I don’t recall ever a a source giving me a classified document. I mean that that I haven’t had that experience. Others have, I’m sure. But there’s the issue of imp improperly classified information. Information has been classified
for political reasons. For example, the number of real casualties in the Gulf. the Trump administration tried to hide that, right? they tried to keep secret the plane switcheroo in in Istanbul. So they they classify all this stuff for political reasons, and that’s why it leaks out, because officials don’t think it’s it’s rightly classified.
the they call they call everything they know like fake news to start with. but they h they hide the problems the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier because they don’t want it out. It it’s it’s not properly classified the the health and well being of the sailors. I mean it would be in wartime, but of course Trump says we’re not in war, so you can’t classify it as a wartime sequel.
Jim Lawler (31:45.853)
Yeah, exactly. So we mentioned earlier that you’re the editor in chief of Spy Talk. We’ve mentioned it a few times on this program. Do you see Spy Talk filling in gaps left as the legacy newsrooms shrink their national security teams?
Jeff (32:01.619)
Well, I don’t wanna puff ourselves up too much. but that is our our goal is to sort of police up stuff that has been left on the floor that hasn’t been reported. we are pursuing several subjects along those lines. Stuff that the media has not gotten around to reporting ’cause I mean they’re so busy, the national security staffs.
of the major legacy media, the New York Times, Post, Wall Street Journal, etcetera they’re really, really busy because there’s so much going on with Iran, NATO, China, domestic policing and so on. The national security staffs are really, really busy. So needless to say they’re they’re they overlook some things that we’re very interested in and that I’m not gonna say exactly what it is, but we are pursuing subjects that
that w have not been covered thoroughly or at all. I mean, w we have scoop material that we’re seeking to verify, get further confirmation of, right now. So we we that that’s our job. Plus I I’ve I I I started spy talk because way back in two thousand five when I was a congressional quarterly because I I just thought there was a lot of stuff that goes under the radar needs to be mentioned.
you know, committee reports, you know, that don’t really get much mention at or any mention at all at the intelligence committees or the armed services committees, GAO reports, congressional research reports, all this stuff that really needs to be swept up and and put out there in the given amp amplification. So that’s what I’ve specialized in since I started Spy Talk back in two thousand five and I could continue to do it in our
in a weekly spy week roundup on the weekend, to dredge up all the stuff that has really gone under the radar. or to add context to stuff that’s been a big story. So
Jim Lawler (34:11.364)
Yeah, exactly. So one thing that of course I am and you are concerned about are the d various threats to democratic norms, to our constitution. But let’s put this in contrast with genuine threats versus maybe some overheated rhetoric. Where do you see the genuine threats to be?
Jeff (34:27.155)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff (34:31.166)
The genuine well, th there’s some are just immediate. For example, the decimation of the counter
the the cyber attacks the a the principal agency, CISA, that is the principal agency for countering cyber attacks, for example. We’ve had an ongoing story about suspected Iranian. We don’t know if it’s official or not, but we’re pretty sure it’s an Iranian infiltration of water control systems. These are power plants, dams and so on, most chiefly in the in the Midwest. And that really worries me.
And we let down our defenses. That’s one area of real concern. The other is the decimation of the foreign agents monitoring, you know, people who are acting as agents of a foreign hostile power or or even a friendly power like Israel or France, which are also espionage threats to us. and the Justice Department under Trump and the FBI have cut back
monitoring of these activities. also domestic terrorism. The the record shows that domestic terrorists have have been mainly on the right. We haven’t seen left wing terrorism like we did in the nineteen sixties with the weathermen and so on. There are occasional attacks, but mostly by far great majority. ninety percent I don’t quoted ninety percent, but the large majority of attacks have come from from
ult uber maga people or just plain racists, who who spout patriotic views and so on and and attack people in the US. So that that very much concerns me. What also concerns me, I’m a NATO hawk. I’ve all I’m what you might call a classic Cold War liberal, you know, I’m I’m all for free speech, constitutional protections, but I’ve also always been a hardcore NATO supporter.
Jeff (36:39.964)
And I see the tattering of the NATO the undermining of NATO by the Trump administration is extremely dangerous. There’s lots of evidence that the Russians are are probing NATO defenses in the Baltics in particular. And of course they continue to commit war crimes in Ukraine by targeting civilians with their missiles and drones. I think Ukraine’s and the Ukrainians, the brave Ukrainians, are fighting for us all to hold the Russians back. and that’s
Jim Lawler (37:08.396)
Amen amen. Amen to that. I couldn’t agree more with you.
Jeff (37:10.794)
It’s it’s it’s not the idea of these MAGA people who call it a forever war. they put themselves in a forever war with Iran effectively, but the Ukrainians are standing up for us and the Western way of life. because you think Vladimir Putin’s gonna stop with Ukraine? No, he’s not. and and he’s very much in the Russian czarist tradition of expanding influence. And you know
Th things haven’t much changed in that regard from the Soviet Union. So I’m and and of course China. first of all, before leaving the issue of Trump Russia, obviously going back for decades, Trump has shown an affinity for Russia. Oddly. We we you know, a lot of there’s a lot of heated rhetoric as you said on this issue, you know, that he’s an agent and even a former senior K G B guy said he had a code name and all. We haven’t been able to confirm that. and
And and most intelligence people I talk to dismiss that as maybe some more K G B provocation. we we simply don’t know. But he’s sh Trump has shown an affinity for doing business in Russia since the nineteen eighties. And he b bends over backwards to accommodate Russia on the Ukraine war. so that’s
You gotta wonder, you know, I mean some people call it say Trump is a traitor. Yeah, I I’m not going there, but I I’m y you gotta w wonder what’s going on there. my analysis is Trump and company wanna do business in Russia and if they can get a Russia friendly settlement of Ukraine then they’ll be able to make business investments in Russia and they’re so stupid about it they don’t realize that everybody does business in Russia ends up losing their shirt. So then then there’s the China issue.
Jim Lawler (39:04.198)
Much.
Jeff (39:07.026)
You know? I mean we just shifted an aircraft carrier to to the Med or to the Persian Gulf because of the Iran stalemate. That leaves Taiwan less defended. they’ve been vague about defending Taiwan and I I know that that’s an artificial policy of being vague, but there’s always been the assumption that we will defend Taiwan. And you gotta wonder why why are they doing that?
and why are they messing with AI manufacturers here? all sorts of confusing goals. The AI policy has not been pronounced. We haven’t sorted out the rivalries between these companies. And meanwhile, China goes full shit ahead and you ful that’s a police state, you know. They can just they can decide
the Communist Party and Xi Jinping decides where to put its money. And they’re putting a lot of money into AI and th there’s a lot of worry about where that’s gonna leave us. Some of it’s hyped, I think, by the AI companies here in America for their own reasons of profit. but still it’s there’s there’s no doubt that someone’s gonna get to the the top first on AI. And that’s you talk to anyone with long experience in the military and they’re very worried about this.
Jim Lawler (40:31.078)
So I could ask you rhetorical question about w now that we’re only le fewer than three months away from the congressional elections and and really not that far away from the twenty twenty eight presidential election. Are you cautiously optimistic or do you think we’re on a downward spiral?
Jeff (40:49.18)
I I’m not cautiously optimistic. I’m cautious. You know, I I’m really worried about the the Trump’s Trump people talking about sending election monitors to Justice Bar. We have Trump’s personal criminal lawyer, is now the Attorney General and they’re talking about sending election monitors which could only dou you know keep people at home, Democrats, from voting.
especially, you know, Latinos and and blacks who who could be, you know, arrested on site just because that’s what ICE does. They arrest American citizens. too l let me put it this way. Too often we see examples of them arresting American citizens and sending them to de detention centers and it takes weeks, if not months, to to to get their cases straightened out and to get them freed.
So if if there are people who are are worried that they’re gonna be arrested by showing up to vote, that’s gonna dampen the vote. So and I I I I’m generally I don’t take partisan positions, but I think Trump is a national security threat and d the Democrats, despite all their own issues and problems, they they th that’s our only vehicle for getting rid of this national security threat.
Jim Lawler (42:11.1)
So Jeff, we’ve really enjoyed listening to you describe y you know, your career and and I want to emphasize to everybody listening that Spy Talk, be it on the in the electronic form on Substack or on the podcasts, I I read it and listen to it every week. is there anything else you want to say about spy talk?
Jeff (42:32.635)
Well, i it only exists because of patriots like yourself, Jim. you know, we’ve had we’ve had the f great support of people like yourself who streak tr who speak truth to power, and without that, we would be a shadow of ourselves, you know. We we rely on people with knowledge of the intelligence community and policies
to explain context to us or draw things to our attention. For example, this person who sued me, you know, it was someone in the IC who tipped me that this very flawed person was being nominated to run Pentagon Health Services when according to the sources I talked to, he didn’t do a good job running OMS and was at CIA and was forced out. So, you know
We depend on that and and we have many, many subscribers from inside the IC. In fact, CIA and the O D and I are paying subscribers to Spy Talk. So they they think it’s important to p pay attention to what we’re doing. So that’s the greatest compliment in a way.
Jim Lawler (43:40.742)
Well that I I there’s I exactly there’s no f higher form of flattery than than that. I I love that. So Jeff, I want to thank you for taking your time today and sharing your viewpoints, very valuable viewpoints with our listeners. And if you like today’s conversation, please subscribe to the Steady State Sentinel, leave us a five star review, and join us again next week for the Steady State Sentinel. I’m Jim Lawler, still standing watch.