Was followed by the big fix. An International Bestseller looking at corruption and match fixing in the world of football, soccer. To many of you here, an article on the subject, even resulting in the inspiration for a simpsons episode. Surely the pinnacle of anyones career. He is a National Security reporter for the wall street journal, where hes invested. Get to work often focuses on the former soviet union. His new book centers on a Young American missing in russia. Was it a personal quest gone wrong or related to his work for the fbi . First will be in conversation with susan glasser. Glasser is a staff writer for the new yorker and the author of its weekly letter from trumps washington, as well as the cnn Global Affairs analysis. So please join me in welcoming Brett Forrest and susan glasser. So. Well. Thank you so much. Can you guys hear me . Yes or no . I think its on. On. All right. Im going to do this up. All right. What about this . Yes, this is better. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I have to say, i am delighted to be here with brett because it is a terrific book. You know, i can shamelessly hock it since, you know, thats not really as appropriate for him. But i can tell you that it is just an incredible yarn and most importantly, a real feat of reporting. It is also a nice break on a friday night. Ive just come from reading that 44 page indictment and lets just say the thing speaks for itself. Although i do recommend maybe you take a read yourselves. Brett im really delighted to be with you. Your book, lost son an American Family trapped inside the fbi secret wars. This is this is a rich book filled with a lot of different subjects. Its about russia. Its about ukraine. Its about the fbi. Its about a detective story. Its about this one sort of lost soul. This character, billy riley, and i think we should start with with with the human piece of this, because people are always interested to peel back the curtain a little bit. And what we journalists do. You are clearly a fearsome investigate a reporter. And yet i think in some ways it must have been this personal story of this young man that kind of captured your attention. Tell us why, billy riley, why you told this story. Well, first of all, susan, thank you for graciously hosting this event. And and and to politics and prose for doing likewise and for everyone whos come tonight. Yeah, its i when i first heard of this story, i immediately saw its narrative potential because i saw that that it was a it was a story about big institutions, major geopolitical events. But at its heart, it was a story about one person, a young man, who was trying to find his way in the world, in the post911 world. And he, billy riley, was really for me, a bridge between the global war on terror and the war in ukraine. Well, i expand on that a little bit, because its a kind of a provocative thought. Right. You know, the war in ukraine, i think for many americans, part of this is a chronology issue. Right . For many americans, the war in ukraine began on february 24th of last year. But in ukraine, thats not how they see it, is it . Thats right. And you know, from your experience in that part of the world, the the reality the truth is that this war began in 2014, of course. And. Billy riley was attracted immediately to that event. And a year later, he found himself in russia directly in connection to russias war efforts in ukraine. But the way i look at it is that billy, who became in starting in 2010, confidential human source for the fbi, billy began working in counterterrorism for the fbi excuse me. But then he his interests ultimately widened and broadened and and then he started working on on issues related to the war in ukraine for the fbi. So it was sort of a continuum. Well, and i think one of the things that one of the themes that clearly leaves out to me is that were living in this, you know, sort of age of of online activation, and were all, you know, familiar with the stories of, you know, how that can radicalize people, you know, whether the cause is, you know, radical islamic terrorism or whether its, you know, a sort of right wing russian nationalism, you know, that there are so many different ways in that his story is also a story about that, that it wouldnt be possible in the pre 911 preinternet, pre social media era. Yeah, well, when i first heard about this story, i thought, i thought that it had shaped of into the wild world readers here we know that book by jon krakauer about a young man who was idealistically following his dreams and into something that he couldnt really handle. Ultimately. But. But billy story had shades of that. But also with technology, because billy was in high school when 911 happened and he was immediately drawn to global conflict, to world religions, to foreign languages. And he was able to to follow these interests online because he was he was in adolescence at the same time that the internet itself was in an adolescence, social media was just developing. And so these two forces came together and they enabled billy to to teach himself russian and teach himself arabic, just in his own home, on his computer, on his phone, and also develop a real expertise, specifically in the middle east, just following his own personal interests. And then ultimately, the thing that led him to the fbi was his ability through the internet to Contact People who were living lives of great stakes internationally. Here was a kid living in oxford, michigan, just north of detroit, a pretty slow paced life. And he wanted his life to matter. Okay. But i have to say that i came away thinking like i wasnt sure that the fbi had any business. You recruiting this young man and and and working with him and that thats part of your story that youre telling here is both the incredible almost metastasis zation, not only of online threats in this post911 world, but also of our security apparatus, the fbi itself. And i think it raises some real questions. Im curious whether, you know, you answered a lot of questions in this book, but whether your own, you know, qualms which do come through about whether whether this kid, billy, should have even been working with the fbi. Thats a very good question. But the thing is, after 911, we all remember that time period, right . The frenzy for answers and for information. And it was the fbis responsibility to come up with information and intelligence and mandated by capitol hill and the administration, the fbi really changed from being simply a Law Enforcement body that was charged with collecting evidence that could be used in court in federal cases to an Intelligence Agency that was working really beyond doj in many cases, to short circuit, principally terrorist conspiracy. So in that effort, the fbi created something called the confidential human source reengineering project, which gathered all of its informants into one group, but also started recruiting new people, like people like billy, who are rank amateurs and bringing them into professional intelligence, people who had special skills. I remember when i said he he he taught himself arabic and russian to a pretty capable degree. He knew the players in the middle east. He knew different terror groups and his internet traffic attracted the fbi to his door and when they learned about his skills and abilities, they said, you know, why dont you do it for us . But back to your question. Was that something the fbi should have been doing. See, thats a question, though. Youre you know, youre answering my question with a question. I hate you. I dont want to get ahead of ourselves. And i should say that were not going to be doing any spoiler alert, because this is also, you know, a mystery, a reporters journey to try to answer. One familys kind of very agonized question about what happened to their son who disappears into russia. But so without any spoilers, i do think that you know, people here might want to understand a little bit of the basics of, you know, billy and why you ended up, you know, devoting so much of your own life to his story. Because basically, we know at this point in our conversation, he an fbi informant, that hes a kid who has been sort of activated in some way by 911. But why russia . You know, how does he how does he end up in russia . And how does that connect to the some of the very disparate things that youve done as a journalist . Right. Well, he was he worked for the fbi for five years, starting in 2010, just as he was coming out of college. And he he was working mostly in counterterrorism for for the fbi office in detroit. He started out simply filing reports as the arab spring was beginning and as isis emerged in the world and became a priority for u. S. Intelligence and Law Enforcement and counterterrorism. But he graduated to doing field work around detroit and and his his handlers were directing him toward investigative targets around detroit. Again, mostly connected to counterterrorism. But in 2014, when the war broke out and in donbass, after russias annexation of crimea, many of us, of course, remember the downing of mh 17, the malaysian airliner over Eastern Ukraine, and thats when thats really when his interest in the war in ukraine began because his fbi handler directed him to that event to try and figure out all he could about it online. From that moment on, billys attention was really focused on on events between russia and ukraine. Did he have a bias or a preference or, you know, what was what was he getting out of this . Did he have a point of view in in this conflict . Well, billy was really, i guess, the simplest way to say is he was an iconoclast, because billy was of european descent, born and raised in michigan, a catholic went to Catholic High School and after 911, he became so fascinated by all of those important issues that a year after 911, he converted to islam and he could be seen at the back of the classroom in Catholic School reading the koran. So he was lets just say he made he made some choices that would maybe surprise people who knew him. People. I mean, these are not traditional choices. Lets say when it came to the war in ukraine. You know, billy was billy was really interested in finding information that other people werent looking for. You know, after 911, he didnt accept the explanations of the terrorist attacks that were that were being sent out. But sort of traditional news media. He didnt you know, he didnt really believe that islam was to blame. And he looked more deeply into the issues. So when the war in ukraine broke out, i think he took the same approach. You know, he applied it to trying to figure out, you know, whats whats behind what everybodys saying. And there i think he got into a bit of a shadow area. And i think he was a little bit the beguiled, lets say, by some information that was coming out of russia. Yeah, well, i mean, i think youre being very sort of gentle, but i have to say, just as an outside reader, you know, you have the perspective here of somebody who is prone to conspiracy theories, who is activated, who has very little actual grounding in his subjects is, you know, being used by the u. S. Government to do things. He have no real idea is very prey and susceptible to misinformation, to, as you said, you know, russian cover stories. And that was what was astonishing to me is that, you know, we can all and sort of envision this. And its clearly something thats thats greatly affecting our politics here in the United States, as well as in or nationally. And yet then it goes from the virtual to the actual. This guy shows up in russia and you start out with this very to me, a very compelling image. Again, because we can all see it of this sort of clueless Young American guy in a train station in moscow. I know it well. And you know, there hes going to meet his contacts, you know, who are going to supposedly sweep him off to fight with the prorussian separatists in Eastern Ukraine. And theyre these hardened, you know, killers, these militia. And a picture is snapped of him, you know, he seems like like like, you know, theyre almost a caricature of, you know, the foolish Young American abroad. And what is he doing . Hes pulling his black really back suitcase. He doesnt seem like hes somebody whos ready to go fight with you know, deadly russian militants. Certainly not in the suitcase, really, as something that is quite interesting. Right . Right. A few people, i think, would seriously go to war with with one of those. Definitely not in my experience, russian paramilitary. Right. Right. This wasnt a carry on and this is something you got to check. So also, never bring checked baggage to a war. I mean, lets be clear. Right. Right. I you know, i mean, i. Okay, its true. I might i might be charitable to billy, but because i you know, hes hes a fascinating character or to me, its very hard to understand exactly what hes thinking. And also the fact that hes working for the fbi is something that you can never escape because you never really know the full truth of the relationship and what theyre telling him, what theyre directing him to do, what theyre suggesting. Now, you know, ive read hundreds and hundreds of pages of fbi manuals, specifically related to how agents are instructed to target, recruit and handle confidants, all human sources. And theres a lot of stuff in these manuals that that really make you question their intentions. And i just think of a guileless person like billy. He was 23 when he was recruited by the fbi. Hed never spent a night away from home alone. Hed always lived with his parents or his family being sort of, you know, romanced and recruited by the fbi. Fairly sophisticated fbi agents whove been to quantico and been through all the training. You know, i look at billy with a little sympathy because hes kind of defenseless. Yeah. No, its an incredible portrait here. And lets talk a little bit about your more broad reporting on the fbi and what you learned in the course of doing this at what it tells us about the nature of the post911 security state. You know, do you think any of this would have been possible. Before september 11th . Thats a its a great question. I mean, the thing that happened after 911, as i mentioned earlier, is that it was just an incredible expansion for the fbi, not only the fbi, but so many other Law Enforcement and intelligence agencies in the u. S. The thing you see over the the history of the fbi is you see that time and time again, agents sort of overstep and make mistakes or do things perhaps intentionally, that they shouldnt be doing that are borderline illegal. Right. And then you see congressional oversight come in, rein them in. And then very soon after, theres a new National Emergency that loose loosens those chains and actually gives the fbi more license. And 911 was the classic example because 911, of course, was was the fbis greatest failure, their responsibility among others, is counterterrorism. And to to ferret out a conspiracy against the United States domestically. And they they failed. Now, what happened after their failure . They were given even more license. The congress, the 911 commission, said that they had to make more usage of people like billy, more usage of confidential sources. So, yeah, i mean, billys im not sure that to answer your question more directly, i dont think it would have been possible before 911. Its after 911. The whole thing just expanded to another degree. Well, one of the things i appreciate, actually, about this story is that its out of the current context in which theres so much, you know, overheated and sort of partizan rhetoric around the fbi and this takes us back, you know, to a previous and very consequential, you know, moment in fbi history. And i, i appreciate that this is a sort of ideology free, you know, kind of telling of something that that mattered regardless of, you know, any individuals political career. But do you think that there was i mean, the politics of this really cut both ways in the end, both democratic and republican politicians ended up supporting things like the usa patriot act because, you know, they felt that it was politically impossible, probably not to. Yeah. Well, i appreciate you noticing that as an ideological, ideological free zone in this book. You know, i mean, this article, this this book grew out of an article at the wall street journal where, you know, thats thats our focus. You know, just gathering the facts and synthesizing them and and putting them out there. And i and i hope that the book is in the same spirit as written in the same spirit. Yeah. I mean, this is these are these are consequential issues that that i think demand constant scrutiny because the fbi time and again, even though there is an apparatus for oversight on capitol hill, you know, they just slip out of it time and again. Even in this case. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about, you know, the efforts to, you know, sort of interact with them as youre trying to unravel this story. I mean, i think thats an interesting aspect of the story, is, you know, youre trying to get information from the people who have a great incentive, of course, not to give it to you once things go sour for 4 billion and for his family, we havent talked about his family, but i do i suspect that it was also your empathy for his for his parents and whove, you know, sort of lost this son that informs why you chose to spend so much time unraveling the tale. Yeah, i think that, you know, at its best, what we do for a living journalism, it performs a public service. And not to get too high and mighty here, but i think thats true. And and when i met the rileys, billys parents, terry and bill riley, i saw people who had spent two years plus trying to find their son, and they were out of options and they needed help. And having lived in russia, having lived in ukraine, having worked in those countries for a considerable amount of time, i felt like perhaps i could do something and it felt sort of like professional negligence if i were to decline, at least looking into the story, looking into the case. Yeah. I mean, what happened to the rileys . And again, not to give away the ending of the book, but, you know, they they they they went through an experience that was sort of a combination of an investigative project for them, grief and a having lost contact with their son and then and then rage at the Us Government because they, they discovered evidence that the fbi was lying to them about its foreknowledge of billys trip to russia and his activities there. And they felt like the fbi and perhaps other parts of the u. S. Government were actually thwarting their