Years. I Cover National Security including the fbi and ive recorded extensively on the fbi russia investigation known as crossfire hurricane. I want to thank pete for coming on and have this frank discussion. Im interested how he came to use that codename. Before we get into the details of the book, pete, why dont you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and your counterintelligence background at the fbi. I was in boston worked on the case which on a series of russian illegals which formed the basis of past Television Show the americans but did a variety of the bread and butter counterintelligence work that occurs in a midsized office, russia, china, espionage. And then after being a street agent started moving up the management chain. I was the number two of all the fbi counterintelligence operations. Before we launch into the book, describe a little bit about the difference of counterintelligence investigation and what a criminal investigation is of the fbi. I think that has been lost upon the public in the midst of everything. Absolutely. Criminal investigations are frequently what the public thinks of when they think of the fbi. Is a bank robbery or organized criminal and agents throughout they are trying to build a case looking at violations of the law which has various elements of the crime. We have to demonstrate with evidence up to and including a courtroom where its going to withstand adversarial crossexamination by defense attorney and the goal there is to prove or not prove that somebody violated the law. Intelligence work is really different, counterintelligence nazi saboteurs coming on shore in the northeast coastline even before that part prior to world war ii its really different from criminal work. The standards are very different frequently the material and information is classified. There are things that if it was disclosed could get a source killed up until very recently very quiet line of work. Its beneath the surface and something thats just not talked about. Why did you decide to write this book for years you essentially maintained silence and spoken to congress now youve come up with this book which is obviously highly critical of the president of the United States. Basically accused him of being compromised. Why put yourself back out in the spotlight where trump contorts you on twitter . Because the threat he poses is too important to ignore. He was there in 2016, continues to stay. One of the reasons was to have an accurate account of what occurred. Theres been a lot of recounting and twisting of the historical narrative bipartisan individuals seeking to twist what did and did not occur which continues to this day. I wanted a book that could be relied on to be an accurate factual representation of exactly what we did through 2016, 17, all the way up to the current day. The other thing i wanted to do is get the reader into the mindset of what counterintelligence agents think and how they see the world and why counterintelligence work is what it is, what we are concerned with and why its different from criminal work. The last thing of course is the highlight, the threat that continues to come out of the white house and trump. Things havent gotten better. The russians are still attacking us, people need to understand why russia is doing what they are doing and the unique threat that exists within the person of President Trump and why that is so advantageous to russia and why russia continues to try to get him reelected. Why should readers take your word over abyou have been cast as a villain, a secret member of a cabal who wanted to take down the president. That is the narrative among Trump Supporters. Namely based on your Text Messages revealed in which you expressed antitrump bias. You claim in the ig never found Inspector General never found evidence of any operational decisions based on fines but you are among several fbi officials that trump has targeted and Trump Supporters think are dirty cops. Why should the public believe what you are writing . For a couple reasons. I think my historical record and it speaks for themselves part of why layout is this issue of cases that have worked the outcomes of those, and what we did and the reasons we did it. Its very plainly there, able to be corroborated and people can see the facts and go back and verify them. Places they should look to verify the reasons they should believe me as all these independent looks that books that have been done, theres two Inspector General that it investigations over three years 15 or more attorneys and analysts looking at every last thing they did every text every email every call every note, every communication all of which concluded that not only me but the entire team that there wasnt evidence of any act taken based on improper motive. You add on top of that multiple u. S. Attorneys that the department of justice is assigned take a look at her actions after the fact we look at all the congressional investigations that have tried not to mention all the media, you and other folks looking at what we did all these things all these deep investigations have come up with no indication no evidence that things were done based on proper acontrast that with the president s behavior he cant make it through press conference or town hall without Fact Checking at each event pointing out it occurs time and time again and folks in the media and others have catalogued the literally thousands of untruths that hes uttered. When i look at the targeting of us, not only me but others in the fbi who been lumped into this crazy conspiracy its apparent to me its being done by partisans and its being done specifically to undermine any sort of valid criticism for observations or investigations of trump because he scared of whats there he doesnt want the truth known and anybody not just the fbi, look at people like jovanovich and colonel vindman, anybody who dares speaks the truth is immediately attacked because you dont want the truth out. This leads me to some things you write in the book. On the one hand you are cast as a central villain in this narrative. But when its convenient for trump allies, you are a ab walk us through a couple accounts in the book that sort of explain this, its almost like a conundrum. Walk us through how you handle the james comey memos that he wrote about that he wrote about regarding his conversation with President Trump and also your role in interviewing general flynn and expressing that he didnt have any signs in the cia deception but yet he lied to you. Walk us through those two accounts and how they fit into this conundrum. The fact of the matter is, i lay out the truth and on both sides of the partisan debate people are to find things that support arguments and rebut their arguments. Whats immediately apparent is the same members of some of the right are seizing on items that both tend to favor my credibility and on the other hand seek to undermine it. The example of general flynn we went in there, interviewed him, he knew we were there to interview him about conversations with ambassador kinsley ab i can now say were reviewed the conversations he said we knew he had discussed things like slowing down or dampening the russian response to the sanctions of the Obama Administration had just placed on the russians for attacking the elections. We knew he had spoken about un vote and asking russia to moderate or vote a certain way on that. Before we even walked in the room he talked to the Deputy Director and told him, you guys know what i said, why do you need to talk to me, you have it . At the same time in response to that he decided he didnt need of attorney or want one divide to us in two he didnt tell anybody in the white house and sat there knowing what we are going to ask him. Two or three weeks after he had conversations about this with the president with the front a ahe knew full well what we are going to talk about but he sat there and time and time again when we got to the two critical questions he didnt tell us the truth. A lot of people when they lie or dissembling they tend to have atheyll cover their mouth, lick their lips, look away reask the question. He didnt do any of those things. That doesnt mean he wasnt lying but it does mean there was something going on there that either hes a very good liar or that he thought he was telling the truth or Something Else was mentally going on. Of course when we left, talking about at my interview partner on the way back saying, that was really odd because he had quick answers and he didnt give any kind of visual or ab the bureau calls abthings that would make you think he was lying. At the same time he clearly had. He pled guilty not once but twice to two different judges orally and in writing that he had lied to us. We get back and we are trying to explain, it makes no sense because all the background i just told you, yet he doesnt choose to tell us the truth and he doesnt see, hes not doing anything that looks like hes nervous or looks like hes lying. When i relay all that, of course some of that goes in the write up of the interview called at 302, some of it comes up later and discussion in an interview i did with the ops of the special counsel, folks on the right say, look interviewing agents think he didnt like, they are credible experts they know what they are talking about, they are absolutely right, thats me im the one who said that. Its not how i said it but if youre gonna hold this up as a standard of somebody who is absolutely credible, they knew kant on the other hand seek the pillar in me and say not credible and biased and a so your doctoring the 302 so on one hand your writing ab you write that doesnt exhibit signs. [indiscernable] on the other hand abcan you explain that contradiction . I dont get it either. The 302 represents what he said in the interview. That is something my interview partner and i wrote. My interview partner took the lead, he gave it to me i made substantive changes based on my recollection confirmed with him i think this happened and that, we agreed on the substance of that and thats what he said. Thats why her name is on the 302, i gave it to somebody whos an excellent proofreader to sit there and say, does this grammatically makes sense. Thats common with 302 you will have some of the review it but this has been seized on by some on the crazy extremes to say this was rewritten several times. There was a missing 302, there is no missing 302. My interview partner began the drafting process somebody takes the lead in writing, they kick it to their partner who will sit there and review it adjust things, add things, because you have to bring together the recollection of two people and thats what occurred. We sat there, we came up with it and that 302 represents what flynn said and everything that 302, the notes i took notes my partner took, all that has been turned over not only to now the department of justice but provided to flints attorneys. There is nothing unproduced here, there is no secret but serves as this lies grist for some greats Conspiracy Theory that there is all kinds of ab that didnt happen. The one thing i understand also a part of this fact contradicts your critics, critics of the fbi and comeys leadership, they say you went into entrapment. You set up this interview you entrapped to them but when you read about documents that have been declassified and made public and handed over to flynns lawyers you see that jim comey, you read about this in the book, you see jim call me on the 23rd decides that you guys are just going to abby the 24s today you interviewed general flynn, he decided you can read back snippets of the electronic abfrom the discussions of the russians ab if youre going to entrap flint, why give him the benefit of reading the snippets of what he actually said on the electronic intercepts. Why give them the chance to tell the truth . This plainly was not an entrapment of any sort. This is not a perjury chat in any way shape or form. Whats interesting that morning you point out not only overnight that he said you can read him, you can give him some of the things you said but also in my notes from that morning, hours before interviewing him i note that the goal of the interview is to give flynn the opportunity to tell the truth about his relationship with the russians. That was the purpose of the interview. Surprisingly the department of justice and recent filings in dc with regard to flint and withdrawing his plea there is no mention of that. Its all because it directly rebuts some of the things that he argued the government is arguing in recent filings. Which i hope the court now will get to the bottom of the hold hearings to try to understand what happened with the rug drawl of flynns plea. At the end of the day you are absolutely right. We went in there because we needed to understand what flynns relationship with the russians was. We looked at flynn and in the late fall and early winter decided were not coming up with abwe were looking at him to see whether or not he was a potential match for what George Papadopoulos stated to a representative of friendly Foreign Government that there is this allegation that the government of russia had offered to assist the campaign and the release of materials and would be damaging to obama and clinton. We looked at flynn because a lot of connections he had to russia potentially one of those folks who might have been the person who heard that. We were moving away from that to the point that in the fall and early winter up to and including the director had been brief, were probably gonna close this case because it doesnt look like he is a likely candidate. Everybody had agreed, that occurred in the december timeframe. When you get these intercepts from flynn and kissling act that radically changes our understanding of flynns relationship to the russians. Suddenly he becomes a focus of investigative interest because of his relationship to russia. Theres a lot of this conspiracy, the office wanted to close it and the floor of the fbi stepped in. Nonsense. Another theory is there was an intentional leak in the Washington Post about flynns calls with justlyabisnt it tru you already knew about the calls well before that was revealed in the Washington Post . I think as early as january. Obama had asked the Intelligence Community figure out why putin hadnt responded to sanctions you guys finding your holdings that flynn in fact had talked to kisliack, did that leak matter. Were you going to interview flynn anyway or was it just convenient for you. Walk me through that. And the fbi one of the roles i had was leading investigations of leaks to the media. For many many years whether a i dont condone that by the way. Im a hardened supporter of freedom of the press but im also our supporter of prosecuting people who illegally leaked classified information to you. I can hold both of both of those things in my head at once. I investigated countless illegal leaks of classified information to the media put several people in jail. a we dont investigate reporters, thats not something we do. The First Amendment i think there is some Supreme Court ruling the rules of the race are set but the outcome is not. That leak in particular the one to ignatius did have an impact on our investigation. I was very concerned and you look at my communications i made at the time throughout this period i was deeply concerned about the impact the leaks were having on our investigation. The kind of crazy conspiracy theorists who think this is all part of an organized plan, look to the record look at all my repeated concern about the way the government was hemorrhaging classified information and how it was damaging and impacting our investigation. Those are not the words of a man seeking to undermine trump. Those are the words of somebody wants to quietly conduct an investigation to get to the bottom of the truth and is discouraged, disappointed and bothered that all of these bits of information are coming out. They put us on a much more compressed timetable but what it did do is bring things up into the open when things become public it gives you a reason to go ask about it. If i know something is classified and i go talked to you its gonna burn that source if theres a big newspaper article about it that gives me a chance to go to you and sit down and say i read this article like you did, i want to talk to you about it, can you explain it . That was part of the impetus that pushed us on the path to interviewing flynn. One last bit on flynn and we can move on. I think one of the arguments has been you guys were very concerned, sally was the acting attorney general, very concerned when Vice President pence went on tv and said flynn told me he didnt talk about sanctions which we know is patently false. When you heard that, when pence relayed the story, what happened, what were you thinking at the time . Did that elevate why you needed to talk to flynn . Was this a greater concern now . One of the things that i cant remember if it was in the motion to drop the charge against flynn but barr mightve set it. Flynn lying to pence was not a critical issue, something that shouldve been dealt with in the white house. Is not an fbi matter. Put that in context. I disagree with that. The fact of the matter is we didnt know what was going on when pence made that statement. Knew it wasnt true. There are two options, either pence has been lied to and repeating the lie, which he claims is the case, or in the alternative theres a lot going on seeking to cover up this conversation between flynn and the russians that might include others in the white house. Including pence, most importantly potentially including trump. Keep in mind, russian had just intervened in our election to help elect trump as undisputed, even between the Intelligence Community assessment and others its very clear and undisputed that russia intervened to assist trump in getting elected. We are trying to understand what the nature of that relationship was, understanding what russia did and at the end of the day its important to know whether or not flynn was knowingly lying to us are not telling us the truth but at the end of the day the much more fundamentally important issue in question is, was he doing that because of something trump either had told him to do otherwise directed to act and it wasnt going there figured out what flynn said or didnt say becau