Whistleblower and currently Senior Research fellow at the cato institute. Thank you for being here. Lets talk about your story. Why did you become a whistleblower during the gulf war . Guest those of us whove actually been through this kind of experience when you look at different whistleblower cases, a lot of commonalities come out and theres a new book out, whistleblowing in age of fraud by my friend entered was tom mueller. He takes you through these cases and i briefly mentioned there in connection with another episode of what you buy with most whistleblowers is they tend to be very interdirected. You tend to have a loyalty essentially to a higher purpose or calling and and i spent 26 s in government either fulltime or pipe parttime service between the National Guard and the cia, my ten plus years on capitol hill. Ive taken the same oath about five times in my life to preserve and protect and defend the constitution. I take deadly seriously. I will to that i die and thats what drove in that circumstance because it was very clear during the war that those are to ms. Amount of intelligence that flowing out of the theater in the early days of conflict that indicated potential chemical agent attacks have taken place or chemical agent lines have been going off. I was working at the cias equivalent of Cnn Headline News satellite imagery operation at the time, there iss very turnaround reporting off of satellite imagery. Every time during that war that these reports would come in, whether they were human Intelligence Report or even signal intelligence cuts from the nationals could agency, we would call schwarzkopf, general schwarzkopf in riyadh and asked is this real . Every time willl be told no, false alarm, dont worry about it. In the rush of the conflict, you dont have a chance to go back and look at these things and the war ended relatively quickly come see seemingly without a lf lerican casualties and i kind of went on with my career and my life. It wasnt until my wife was also a cia analystst at the time woud up doing the rotation to the Senate Banking committee when don rigell rico was the chairmo investigate iraq he jeweled use exports to iraq and as a potenl connection to these illnesses that desert storm veterans had started report in large numbers in 1992. Every basically dont the Banking Committee our alarms went off. Im now left with the circumstance where after my wifes first day on the job, she brings home the preliminary step level report the Banking Commission issued 1993 and she looks at me, and to demand she says read this. I think we got gassed, meaning our troops were exposed to agent. I read the report, the 50 pages and it was anecdotal but the the were an awful lot of anecdotes from veterans reported these things. That got me to thinking, do we have a coverup . Something really happen . Nobody else at cfa was going to take a look at this because the agency had issued assessment saying no chemical agent ever deployed to theater, nobody exposed. If anybody was going to take a look at this it would have to be between me and my wife, are working on capitol hill feeding me tips, me going into classified cia databases to recreate the classified record from the gulf war. I should be clear, my investigation was totally unauthorized, and clearly off the books. It was something i did because i was a a desert storm era veteran and i felt these many women were probably not getting thehe truth about what happened and as it turned out they were not getting the truth. Host when you say you did your own investigation, why were you doing her own investigation . What did you think or how did you know what to do with the information you are going to find . Guest the cia gave me great training as an analyst, so i was able to utilize that to my benefit. Ive always been a scholar bibit and by predisposition anyway. But i understood the agency. I understood exactly what i need to go toto get access to information. I also use tradecraft along the way. I make sure the door to my office was closed. When i went to sources in the pentagon, i did it utilizing means that would ensure the likelihood of me being detected doing that were minimal. Host how long did d it take you . Guest i started this literally the day after my wife headed me that Banking Committee staff level report, and by july of 1994 i put together a 55 page powerpoint presentation. I hadd hundreds, maybe thousands of documents on the computer. A combination of human intelligence come into intelligence and signals intelligence. I was utilizing available Public Information including but the p Banking Committee have been funny but an awful lot of press reporting on it. At the time i get that assembly all this data it was clear to me that a veterans probably had been exposed to chemical agents, possibly to attacks, but more than likely to a lot of the bombing took place in the next week. T that subsequent release the century a lot of agents and other debris that formed a lot of downward hazard to that float over American Forces in saudi arabia. And again when i finally did surface this with my frontline manager, of course he completely freaked out, had no idea i was doing this. With 16 the concern. Host what do you mean by frontline manager . Guest within the agency you wind up having Different Levels ofth management, not shockingly. The front line would be so known as a branch chief, norm in charge from six to a dozen people. From there you go to the Division Level and beyond that you would get to group and ultimately to director level. Thats a rough estimate of how the structure worked at least 23 years years ago when i was there. E. My branch chief was mortified i done this but he was also terrified i had a pretty decent case that something had gone awry. I was promised this would be investigate by the socalled experts come people who did this for a living. I knew was those same people with one to put an end on a report saying none of this had happened to begin with. By november we learned from a source thatr, essentially they pick somebody to debunk what we put forward. That put me in a row mood. I was not terribly happy with that so i did something completely outside of agency culture. I wrote a letter to the editor of the Washington Times which is pearlhed ironically of harbor day in 1994 in which iqs which i. T. Is the secretary defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff of covering allrm the stuf of. I didnt identify missile as a cia employee and apl classified information. So from a strict legal standpoint i was on very solid ground. But from Agency Cultural culture standpoint i finally did everything you could possibly think of. I took a couple weeks before the lightning bolt came down but my manager brought me into the office and 50 gbytes is . I was in a very open mood and i theres only one Patrick Eddington living in this community. Now an assistant dont take a source im going to march up to bill and Start Talking to people. That change the dynamic at that moment. Host when did you become aic whistleblower . Guest by april of 1995 i had gone through a through a sf what i will call dog and pony show in total briefings at cia with differing levels of managers and folks where it was really clear that despite my ability even take material out of the cia library that showed potential Health Effects from either lowlevel exposure to chemical agents, they were simply not going to go and review all the available data this issue and a serious way. Due to be when john deutsch ws nominated to be the next director of Central Intelligence, i smuggled 100 classified documents and took them up to the Senate Intelligence committee and i laid all this stuff out on the table. It was a bipartisan meeting with staff, probably a little bit different than what we are seeing with the ukrainegate episode today. I had taken postit notes and labeled the key documents and my basic pitch was i dont believe folks at the pentagon are playing straight with the American People and veterans about this, please quiz him on the basis of this material. Make a real effort. Within days i learned instead of ciag that, they had called to say do you know one of your people came up here with 100 documents and try to pitch this on us . I got the sense i was being subjected to a counterintelligence investigation and that told us it was time to go and we need to think about an exit strategy. Thats basic between aprilmay of 1995 and about a year later is what will begin to execute t strategy. Host how then did you become a whistleblower . What was the exit strategy . Guest my concern was making sure that we lease would not be on the street. Do this, when whists they wind up losing their jobs, their homes, things of that nature, so we structured it in a way that my wife wound up leaving in 1996, went to a defense contractor that was still privately held so you did not have shareholder pressure and the public buys that would result buzz that would result. I began writing my first book about this entire episode. I was approached and did work with staff on a president ial president prejudice sherry advisory committee. He absolutely believed we were correct and was subsequently fired because he was raising these issues. We neededcame clear to do something more dramatic, phil sheen in managed to get in touch with us. Tell you will everything but i want to drive , so that wasto cia how it so thats how it happened. I sat down with them in a restaurant in fairfax county, virginia, and spent the better part of four hours going over our story. Host did you have the official whistleblower status and protection . Guest so from the time that army captain Christopher Pyle first went to the Washington Monthly in january of 1971 to reveal army surveillance,en which is the beginning of the modern whistleblower era at least as i pay get comeuppance of 1998 there were no statutory protections of any kind for whistleblowers who want to come forward. Ars after my wife and i did what we did that the first legislation in the intelligence community, whistleblower protection act was passed. In that legislation, there was no real protection. It gave you a pathway to report things but there was no statutory bar to retaliation. Marginally,improved but as my friends at the Government Accountability say, we need vastly stronger protections. We need a deterrent in protection to discourage people, whether it is the president of the United States for a manager cia, that the panda tour penalties should be 10 years in prison and a 1 million fine. Host you became a whistleblower the day you set down with the new york times. Questions and comments about his story, being a whistleblower, republicans, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Ndependents, 202 7488002 we are also getting his perspective on the impeachment inquiry. Rodney and madison, iowa. Caller if whistleblowers are so important, barack obama prosecuted a different whistleblowers and slapped gag orders on about four of them. Can you explain that . Guest a great question, you are correct. His administration did more to persecute whistleblowers prior to any other administration. Things abouty president obama that have pointed us and i voted with him because i bought the line about change, and i forgot the key lessons i learned in my over 30 years in washington mr. Obama campaigned against the surveillance state and the patriot act, the section 502 act. He ended up embracing both of those, and the same thing with whistleblowers. In 2012, the Obama Administration implemented what 19, a mores ppd formal process for whistleblowers to bring things forward. Even that process, i think my friends would agree, has been anything but ideal and effective. What we have seen from President Trump on this issue looking to out this individual or group of individuals, that is contrary to the law and what the act says. I get the president s frustration. He is not happy, but we need to have these provisions in place so that folks can come forward without fear of being fired. Host what are the formal procedures that were put in place . Has been a while since i reviewed the details, but in essence it creates a stance in which whistleblowers can bring these issues up, and if an Inspector General is involved in this and there are concerns about whether that Inspector General has been taking the allegations seriously, it is possible to take it to a next level with an external review panel. This happened in the case of nsa ig george ellard. The allegations were found to be credible and he was reprimanded. There was subsequently an appeal to the pentagon and an official overturned the ruling, which is one of the reasons why a lot of us have problems with the system as it is. If you dont have members, it means members have to care about whistleblowers and have to be engaged on these issues. Chuck grassley is probably a good example. Spent almost a year ago that senator grassley revealed the Central Intelligence agency hat in fact, been monitoring the communications of whistleblowers both with the ic ig and members of congress. Frankly i have been rather shocked by the house no Senate Intelligence committee have gone to battle stations over that because its that kind of illegal domestic surveillance of house and Senate Intelligence committees were created over 40 years ago to prevent. This has this is not been a topf conversation for censorship or senator burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence. Host President Trump tweeted a couple days ago about the whistleblower, the socalled whistleblower before knowing i i was going to release the exact transcript stated michael what you couldnt present was crazy, frightening and completely lacking in substance related to national security. This is a very big lie. Read the transcript. Guest i dont recall the whistleblower using that phraseology. What we do know so far on the basis of the testimony that has so far been given in the snippets of testimony we have so far from state department and other officials involved, is that the substance of the allegations were valid. Thats what mr. Maguire of of te Intelligence Committee Inspector General currently found wendy evaluated the complaint several months ago. I understand the the president s frustration. He feels like this is supposed to be a generalize court proceeding, impeachment inquiries dont fall into that category. There ultimately a political process and thats what we have to be very careful. I have concerns about how House Democrats have been handling this. Host lets get to samuel who is in upper marlboro, maryland, independent. Youre on the air. Go ahead. Caller thank you cspan. I just want to make a comment to your guest. I served in korea in 19811985 they were giving out shots for soldiers to take and it didnt give any reason. I would just like to say, i really appreciate everything you are talking about because it just shows the corruption in our government is so far gone that you cant even trust anyone in the government. Since i served and then came out and then retired from my Transit Company right behind you, greta, ive always noticed that a lot of our veterans who in turn are always sick, and if you go to the local va you see a lot of veterans who are in these mess programs to keep them on bath and some of the programs that are in the v. A. Doesnt really help. I really appreciate what you think because i have a friend of mine who lives around the corner from me served in the gulf war and she lost her hair. The v. A. Couldnt determine why but now when she found out they were gassed, thats the reason why. She had two miscarriages behind that. I appreciate you coming out and telling the people, the American People how corrupt our government is. I thank you try to appreciate your sentiments and thank you for your service and also to your friend as well. Unfortunately there is a long history of federal government experimentation on military personnel. When i was working as Deputy Director of Government Affairs i ran across this thing called project 112, a very xfiles sounding name but it was a Major Department of defense chemical and biological warfare expert mentation program that was carried out on a global basis. This was approved by president kennedy. When you look at the other instances this is happened, mustard gas experience on military personnel who can the goal for we have circumstances with a giving folks shots of anthrax vaccine which a been approved as a biological warfare prophylactic. They were passing a drug used to treat the condition that is an excess of an enzyme in the brain that controls motor skill coordination. When you give it to somebody who doesnt have that can you are playing with their life. This was done in the name of national security, done ostensibly to protect veterans against potential threats but they were guessing when you did and didnt have good sites to back up what theyre doing. You have veterans that are exposed to this cocktail of stuff in the gulf war and thats what is made in many respects trying to get a single diagnosis for these folks very difficult. Host mark in lexington, kentucky, once did know, do you have reasonably our intelligence agencies have substantial political factions, apart from appointed leadership, beholden to Party Leaders and parties . Guest i think everybody who works anywhere as an adult has political opinions of some stripe or another. When people go to work with the cia or office of the director of National Intelligence or state department, i dont think people stop being what they are necessarily politically. When you take the oath to serve the American People as a whole, your responsibility is to set aside your personal predilections, political beliefs, et cetera and do the job of upholding the constitution of the United States and to present information in a in a factbas, if youre an intelligence analyst. Ive seen a lot of what i would call Conspiracy Theory mongering, that theres a quote deep state coup against the president , so on and so forth. In 2016 when democrats basically say the fbi was the antichrist and jim comey was antichrist and when the six months they were hailing bob mueller former director of the fbi as the Second Coming and so on and so forth. When we get into this environment we have these very, very heated political dynamics going on its difficult for people to maintain any kind of political thank you all for being here. A special welcome to the folks joining us on cspan. Were looking forward to a spirited debate in our Panel Following opening remarks from secretary wilbur ross. I am pleased and privileged to introduce the 39th secretary of commerce wilbur ross
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