charge of this. right. and who holmes sort of accuses of giving this order, he is categorically denying this and says he was not giving holmes an illegal order. all right. chris, we ll get back to you. i want to bring in the man at the center of the story army lieutenant colonel michael holmes in tucson, arizona. first of all, thank you for joining us. there are a lot of allegations here that are flying back and forth from both sides but we have few specifics and we would like for you to help us with that. provide some specifics on this. the military denies that you were ordered to try and manipulate visiting lawmakers in afghanistan using psychological operations. here is the statement they put out, lieutenant colonel shawn stroud who says i categorically deny the assertion that the nato training mission in afghanistan used an information operations cell to influence distinguished visitors. the evidence provided in the rolling stone article is misleading at best, outright fals
but when they got there, general caldwell and his staff said, hey, no, we want you to start, you know, using we want you to actually work on influencing senators and other military officials visiting to help sort of grease the skids and get what they want. then what happens was the leader of the of this information operation cell said hey, that sounds illegal to me. and that was later confirmed with a legal opinion he received from a j.a.g. lawyer. so the question is, why were they using this vital resource, this $6 million a year information operations cell, to try to spin senators? and what techniques do they use in this operation? well, i think what s most interesting is that you know, this unit resisted. so it s not as much how nefarious or benign it was. it was that this resource was being used. what colonel holmes, who s the leader of the psy teams, ended up doing was putting together detailed background profiles ofç the visitors in order to get inside their decision loo
mission-afghanistan, categorically denies the assertion the command used an information operations cell to influence distinguished visitors and he says that essentially lieutenant colonel holmes as asked to gather information for visiting general caldwell about visiting dignitaries but it was the kind of prep work they do in the pentagon and elsewhere before speaking to visitors. martha: interesting. all right, thanks for that reporting, jennifer. we have not heard the last of both sides of the story. thank you, jennifer griffin at the pentagon. bill: another story keeps going on and on, bernie madoff is sitting in prison for stealing up to $50 billion out of investors, and that is what they believe in the end, and any idea how much it is costing to untangle his web of fraud? so far, the firm in charge of investigating the mess, spent almost $300 million. and that s not the end of it. reports say it could cost maybe a billion dollars in the end and judge andrew napolitano is on this,
to actually work on influencing senators and other military officials visiting to help sort of grease the skids and get what they want. then what happens was the leader of the of this information operation cell said hey, that sounds illegal to me. and that was later confirmed with a legal opinion he received from a jag lawyer. so the question is why were they using this vital resource, this $6 million a year information operations cell, to try to spin senators? and what techniques do they use in this operation? well, i think what s most interesting is that you know, this unit resisted. so it s not as much how nefarious or benign it was. it was that this resource was being used. what colonel holmes, who s the leader of the psy teams, ended up doing was putting together detailed background profiles of the visitors in order to get inside their decision loops. that was another quote that he was told.
chiefs of staff. how s that news being received in the pentagon today? i get a sense they re talking about it in the pentagon. but this was an information operation segment specialized in psychological operations as well as military deception. and they originally were on a mission to what they were there to do was to actually train and influence afghans and the taliban. that s what they were supposed to do. but when they got there, general caldwell and his staff said, hey, no, we want you to start, you know, using we want you to actually work on influencing senators and other military officials visiting to help sort of grease the skids and get what they want. then what happens was the leader of the of this information operation cell said hey, that sounds illegal to me. and that was later confirmed with a legal opinion he received from a jag lawyer. so the question is why were they using this vital resource, this $6 million a year information