CIA Whistleblower: They Can See All Your Messages! I Was Under Surveillance In Pakistan!

Billions are spent monitoring Americans, and yes, our tools can hijack a car or turn a TV into a live microphone; Vault 7 laid that bare. I love this country, but I refused to sell the lie that torture worked, and we even ran shameful experiments on our own people.

This feels like a thriller, so who’s the West’s real adversary right now, and was Epstein actually a spy? Before we dive in, thank you for listening each week; we’re only getting started and I’m doing everything I can to keep raising the bar, so tell us why the world knows your name.

I went on national TV to expose the CIA torture program and did time for it, and I’d make the same choice again. I spent fifteen years at the agency from analysis to operations and led counterterrorism work in Pakistan after the September 11 attacks.

If I were sixteen and had never heard of the CIA, how would you explain what you did?

We recruit people to steal secrets and we distill those secrets so policymakers can act. After the attacks, my job was to penetrate Al‑Qaeda by turning insiders to stop the next strike.

Give me a top‑line sense of the projects you worked on.

As an analyst I wrote for the president and senior leaders, and as a kid in my mid‑twenties I briefed in the Oval as Iraq rolled toward Kuwait. Later in operations I trained to spot, assess, develop, and recruit, then used that playbook in the field.

In Pakistan I blended in, built a slow rapport over coffee, asked about his family, and when trust formed he shared very specific information in exchange for help getting home.

How did a kid from Western Pennsylvania become a spy, and do you think the agency now plays the podcast game like it did with Hollywood?

I know the podcast theory—others have built businesses on it—but I’m the most anti‑CIA ex‑CIA you’ll hear. That said, the agency caught up and now liaises with creators much like it steers film and TV toward friendly narratives.

If you were tasked to use podcasters as assets, how would you build that plan?

You’d define a sharp message and repeat it until it sticks, not just chase demographics. That’s why I went public when leaders kept insisting torture saved lives—it was illegal and it didn’t work.

Take me back—how did you actually get recruited?

I’d wanted this since nine, studied Middle East at George Washington, and a professor—actually CIA undercover—pulled me aside and fast‑tracked me to testing. A towering handler named Bob sent me to assessments, and soon I had an offer.

Did your wife know you were applying?

I told her even though I wasn’t supposed to and owned it on the polygraph; secrecy nearly broke us with coded midnight calls and vanishing for meetings, and that marriage didn’t survive.

What did training look like across your roles?

Analysis started with ruthless writing and timeliness—we warned, with sources on the ground, that Iraq would hit Kuwait within two days. You learn urgency grades up to critic, which means wake the president now, like on September 11.

What did the agency teach you about human nature that transfers to leadership or sales?

They hire people willing to operate in legal and moral gray zones because that’s who will take risks others won’t, and I had that edge.

When you turn someone against their country, what’s the hook?

We call it a vulnerability, and about ninety five percent do it for money; the rest for love or family, ideology, revenge, or the thrill.

In business I see people move for meaning over money; how do you square that?

Choosing a new job isn’t the same as betraying your state; the stakes and calculus are different.

What can you offer to flip someone, and where are the legal lines at home?

For foreign sources we can solve nearly anything that’s lawful enough if their intel warrants it, from residency to debts. We don’t recruit Americans; inside the U.S. we mostly debrief travelers to denied places.

Any other skills that carry over?

We’re trained to lie and to catch lies, which wrecks marriages; I even pretended to be gay to build rapport, but the recruitment came from trust, not sex or blackmail, which usually backfires.

What do you know about reality and privacy that most people miss?

We often miss the big swings but hoover up data, and now agencies can buy your metadata without a judge while sprawling laws make almost anyone chargeable; I learned that the hard way when I was indicted, bankrupted, and pushed into a plea.

So what’s your practical advice to regular listeners?

Avoid putting sensitive thoughts in texts and assume anything you say can be used against you.

And on device security?

Many countries have these capabilities, and Vault 7 showed smart TVs can eavesdrop and car systems can be taken over remotely.

I’ve heard you talk about sleeper agents; what are they?

The Russians raise them from childhood to pass as locals with stolen identities, then activate them years later; I’ve seen one outed near me and interviewed an East German who ran to the FBI after a whispered threat on the subway.

What are the odds we meet a spy, and how many operate here?

If you work in defense it’s likely, and Washington teems with foreign officers. Across U.S. and foreign services the total runs into the tens of thousands.

Post September 11, how loose were budgets, and what did you actually pay out?

Money felt limitless: we handed ten million to the Pakistani service for Abu Zubaydah and paid twenty five million to an individual source in another case who then had to start over in a new country.

Conspiracy theorists get mocked, but how much of that history is real?

Programs like MK Ultra and Operation Midnight Climax did happen—dosing unwitting people and running city tests—and a director later ordered files destroyed despite Congress telling him not to.

As protests flare in Iran, who’s likely operating on the ground?

The Israelis have been highly active, recruiting Afghan refugees to map where generals and scientists lived and to tag their phones, then striking targets—even through bodyguards’ devices when leaders ditched theirs.

Does the CIA still assassinate, and how is that justified?

Under Obama there was a weekly kill list meeting for targets labeled a clear and present danger, which sounds precise but isn’t, and afterward we’re asked to accept the teams’ word on outcomes.

Which intelligence service impressed you most?

The Israelis.

The Israelis play without guardrails, and that pager caper was brutally clever and totally unlawful.

For anyone who missed it, what actually happened?

They acquired a pager maker overseas, slipped explosives into devices ordered by Hezbollah, moved them through several countries, and detonated them at once to wipe out key figures, then hit residences to finish the job.

Do they really operate like that, and did you ever deal with them?

Yes, and it was rough; my first liaison brief was offsite because they kept trying to bug our spaces with “gifts,” and a Shin Bet officer tested me for recruitability in the room.

Counterintelligence was drilled into us, from avoiding the steakhouse near CIA to tracking undeclared Israeli officers at contractors, even while we share most of our defense tech with Israel.

Are you saying Jeffrey Epstein was a spy, and for whom?

He fits the classic access agent profile who courts elites, gathers leverage with hidden cameras, and uses kompromat—tactics I associate with Israeli and Russian services.

Would they have made him rich, and how?

States can wash money with ease, and the cleanest channels are real estate, fine art, and high‑value horses.

Why didn’t he talk, and how do you read that lenient plea deal?

That sweetheart deal screams protection from above; the prosecutor said the attorney general ordered it, which implies the president, and while he could have been doubled, if I had to bet everything, I’d bet he was a spy.

I even debated Dershowitz and an Israeli general about it; when pressed, they wouldn’t flatly deny it.

Who’s the true adversary of the West, and why?

China, because they play the long game, steal technology well, and flood our hard‑science programs with students who can be tasked.

Do you think those students are spying?

Yes, we catch them regularly and swap them for Americans held in China, and the cases cluster in the hard sciences.

What does China actually want?

Near term, they want Taiwan back, and even our policy tacitly accepts eventual unification.

With the moves in Venezuela and talk of Greenland, did we just hand them cover?

Snatching Maduro while citing a Monroe‑doctrine sphere invites China and Russia to assert theirs, nudging us from a unipolar world toward a multipolar one.

If China moved on Taiwan tomorrow, what would we do?

We’d rush to secure Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand, but I doubt we’d send troops to fight in Taiwan, and the quiet policy has been don’t do it on my watch.

Beyond Taiwan, do they want to see the U.S. fall, and how are they pushing it?

They win by building, not bombing—funding ports, roads, and power across the developing world, and they practically own Africa through infrastructure ties.

What worries you most right now?

Runaway Pentagon budgets and debt service are hollowing us out while our trains, airports, and roads decay as China upgrades everything.

Could the U.S. actually go bankrupt?

At this pace, yes, which means higher taxes and real cuts are coming.

What big topic did we miss that matters most to you?

Ethics—either we live our laws or we don’t, which is why I exposed torture; the statute never changed, but we pretended waterboarding was suddenly fine.

I saw the split in Bahrain, where human rights warnings clashed with a secret‑prison ask, and I’m proud torture ended after the McCain‑Feinstein law, with McCain crediting my disclosures.

Do you think you should be pardoned by President Trump?

I do; my application is in, I have strong backers, and I’m hopeful.

What did you stop doing that helped your life more than anything you started?

I quit feeling sorry for myself, climbed out of a long depression, and decided to build my own path.

Now I write books, run syndicated columns, host podcasts like Deep Focus and Dead Drop, and I’m in a happy relationship with a good life.

John, your storytelling is outstanding; we’ll link your books, we’re rooting for your pardon, and we’d love to have you back when it happens.