TUCKER CARLSON - Bernard Hudson - New Orleans Attack, Cybertruck Explosion, CIA Corruption, & Tulsi Gabbard

Thank you for watching ⚡⭐⚡

Show more

If you enjoy my Channel, Please LIKE and SHARE the Videos.

https://buymeacoffee.com/bruceafigert

Permanent Washington is trying to prevent Tulsi Gabbard from becoming Director of National Intelligence. Bernard Hudson ran counterterrorism at CIA, and says the country needs her.

Transcript

Tucker [00:00:00] So you served in the CIA for how long?

Bernard Hudson [00:00:02] 28 years.

Tucker [00:00:03] 28 years. You joined when?

Bernard Hudson [00:00:06] 1989.

Tucker [00:00:07] January 1989. And what did you do, roughly speaking, for CIA?

Bernard Hudson [00:00:12] So I was a case officer. Yes. Which means my job was I was focused on, you know, foreign governments and foreign posts where you're trained up, given language skills, given set of skills to manage, manage what we call tradecraft, how to operate clandestinely and safely overseas. And then you were assigned undercover to an embassy. And that sort of becomes your career with stints back in what we call headquarters in Virginia.

Tucker [00:01:02] What countries did you serve in?

Bernard Hudson [00:01:04] So I served throughout the entire Middle East. It was in Iraq. It was in Africa. It was in the Levant. It was in Pakistan.

Tucker [00:01:13] We're in the Levant.

Bernard Hudson [00:01:15] Jordan...

Tucker [00:01:16] So interesting. Was Pakistan like?

Bernard Hudson [00:01:21] So Peshawar, Pakistan.

Tucker [00:01:24] In Peshawar?

Bernard Hudson [00:01:25] Yeah. But before 911 was the most alien place that I've ever gone. I wasn't there permanently. I was just I would go in for business. But that was an alien place.

Tucker [00:01:36] You think I was there two weeks after 911? I've never seen anything like that.

Bernard Hudson [00:01:39] Yeah, it's even alien. Even Pakistanis who live in Islamabad or up India or Karachi, when they go into Peshawar will remark, this is a different country. This is really Afghanistan. It just happens to be inside Pakistan's borders town.

Tucker [00:01:53] Don't you.

Bernard Hudson [00:01:53] Think? It it's very if you like, that sort of man who would be king by the.

Tucker [00:01:58] Flashman Hotel.

Bernard Hudson [00:02:00] If you like, if you like the Flashman Hotel, if you like that sort of British late colonial chic. Totally. It's the place to go.

Tucker [00:02:07] The last flag bearer from the retreat from Kabul.

Bernard Hudson [00:02:11] The last thing you know, the last guy who survived. Yeah.

Tucker [00:02:13] Rode in into. Interesting. Okay, so you served an interesting post doing the kind of work that people associate with the CIA not reading, you know, foreign telegram posts back at back at headquarters.

Bernard Hudson [00:02:26] No, I was thankfully spared that I was able to actually serve. I can, you know, sort of undercover, you know, working, trying to record or recruit what we call human sources and foreign intelligence to go back to our government.

Tucker [00:02:42] How did it change the agency over the 28 years?

Bernard Hudson [00:02:46] So there were three series that I served in. So there was the Cold War CIA that I joined in 1989. Now, I joined like only nine months before the wall came down. But the ethos of that place, up until, say, 91, it was always focused on Russia and the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact. And then it went. And we'll call it an identity crisis, but certainly a change in its character as the United States sort of moved into the peace dividend era. So in 91, when the when the Soviet Union is no more and NATO's starts expanding westward in that period, you know, you had a lot of. Basically a struggle to figure out what is the agency really want to focus on. And it never really came to a clear answer until Tuesday morning, 11th September. And then it became the third agency that I served in.

Tucker [00:03:39] Where were you?

Bernard Hudson [00:03:41] So that morning I was at home and I was in our apartment getting ready to go to an assignment overseas. During my final preparations, I saw that the news had said a plane had just struck a building in New York City. I thought that was pretty weird. Clear day, you know, little suspicious. Jump in my car to go to CIA headquarters. On the radio, I hear that they had just hit the second tower. And I get into the parking lot and there is, you know, a lot of things going on. A woman tells me, I didn't know this person, but they said, you know, in the way things had happened on that Tuesday, people would talk to you who didn't normally talk to each other. Hey, somebody just blew up the State Department. Now, that was obviously a garble of the plane hitting the Pentagon. So I went into the building, went to the Near East section, which was my home division. Your home office was called the division in those days. And at that point, there was a report that there was a missing fourth plane headed to Washington. And the director of CIA prob probably smartly decided to evacuate the building because he didn't know where the target for the fourth plane was going to be. But when you're young and aggressive, I decided I wanted to ignore that order. And so sort of enlisted a friend of mine who was, you know, as we were being told by the record security protective officers who are basically the guard force in the security force inside the agency were telling everybody to leave. It was the first time I'd ever directly disobeyed an order in CIA and instead got a friend of mine to go with me over to what was called the Counterterrorism Center, where a friend of mine who I'd worked for before was the director and said, Listen, you know, this is why I joined the CIA. You know, I joined it to be ready to do something for my country when that time came. And you never really know when that time is. And that for me and for everybody else who was in the CIA in those years, that became the dominant mission, you know, prevent another 911. Yes. Figure out, you know, what the real threat is, Find fix that threat. And and then, you know, do something, make sure it doesn't ever happen again.

Tucker [00:06:02] So where did you go from there? So you're on your way somewhere? You change destinations?

Bernard Hudson [00:06:07] No, I still went to the Middle East, to the Gulf region.

Tucker [00:06:10] Perfect.

Bernard Hudson [00:06:12] And served there for a number of years supporting operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. What you learned in the early days of the global war on terrorism is that it really was a global effort. You know, the United States in those days and it's kind of hard to understand now, had an enormous moral hand when it came to trying to get other countries to enlist with us to work against the counter terrorism threat. And a lot of that, I think, was basically because a lot of countries woke up and realized that accommodating terrorists or turning a blind eye to them was injurious to their own fate. And were eager to partner with the United States in those days.

Tucker [00:06:56] In those days. Do you think that's change?

Bernard Hudson [00:06:59] Well, certainly. I mean, so, you know, you have the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which unfortunately, you know, the intelligence that led to the decision to go in there was deeply flawed. And that had an enormous hit on the American intelligence community's credibility and U.S. foreign policy credibility.

Tucker [00:07:19] Was there soul searching within the CIA after that?

Bernard Hudson [00:07:24] I think there was. I mean, I think what's unclear and what probably has to happen when something that egregiously wrong goes and occurs, there's got to be a public facing piece of this. I think that was absent in the post 2003 environment. I, I personally believe that this was the greatest intelligence failure of the American Intel community in my certainly in my time in government.

Tucker [00:07:55] It was sure a million people died and it reset. It changed so much. It did. I don't understand why they couldn't find some somebody to say, we're going to punish this person, a guilty person. One would hope.

Bernard Hudson [00:08:10] So. What tends to happen in a modern bureaucracy, at least in the American version of it, is those type of mistakes are considered. I'm not saying this is proper, but this is sort of how they approach it. It's a systemic problem. And so we're going to take all these steps to change the things that we think led to this.

Tucker [00:08:32] It is not including firing the leaders of that system.

Bernard Hudson [00:08:35] I notice that is true in the 2003 example. You know, what you don't have is what you might have in, say, a private sector company where you get something really, really wrong. Tard To compare, you know, the magnitude of the 2003 mistake on Intel with anything a private sector company would do. But you got bureaucratic reform out of it. What you didn't get. And it's fair to say this is you didn't get, say, 20 identified people who were told, you know, you have to leave now.

Tucker [00:09:05] Yeah. Because, I mean, you made the point by implication earlier that one of the reasons countries participated in the global war on terror with the United States help the United States was because they had the example of countries that refused to participate or who worked against our interests and they got overthrown. So there's something sort of instructive about punishing someone because it teaches everybody else not to do that thing. Right.

Bernard Hudson [00:09:29] Well, I think in the case of counterterrorism and the cooperation we got after 2001, I think the reason these countries cooperated is their own fear that radical Islamic terrorism was a threat to them as well. Yes. What I think disturbed them after 2003 wasn't that anybody lamented the Saddam Hussein regime going away. It's here's the United States, the global remaining superpower, getting something so tragically wrong, where along the way, many of the countries that are allies of the United States were cautioning, are you really sure that you've got this story right? I think what happened, what you start to see the glimmers of in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion is sort of that deference to American foreign policy begins to be questioned. Yes. And I think in the, you know, immediate years after 2003, you know, Russia and China are still not pure rivals of the United States at that point. But, you know, the repercussions, the ripples that came out of the Iraq invasion in regards to Americans alliance system and how countries view it. I think, underwent another change certainly by 20 1516. With the rise of China's economy and the return of sort of a more confrontational Russian policy in in Syria.

Tucker [00:10:55] Within CIA was was there anyone who said, you know, wait a second, we should figure out exactly how this series of Intel assessments got to the president and policy makers and like, how did we do this? And anyone who participated should be fired or did anyone say this?

Bernard Hudson [00:11:13] So certainly many people said, the point you made up to firing people. There were some people who said that, you know, there needs to be accountability, personal accountability to named individuals. The decision essentially was that we would hold the system accountable. And they introduced a number of reforms. One of them was to create a director of national intelligence, which didn't exist before. Yes. 911 I mean, 9/11, actually, when they created it. But it was empowered by what happened in 2003. So, you know, if you are looking for, you know, a single event or somebody could say, you know, these people are personally held accountable, that did not happen after the Iraq invasion.

Tucker [00:12:02] And it's not just the WMD Intel that remained unpunished. It's like everything since then, every disaster since then has been without an author. I notice, you know.

Bernard Hudson [00:12:13] Again, the you know, the way the way our.

Tucker [00:12:15] President was set.

Bernard Hudson [00:12:17] Yeah. So, I mean, again, the way it tends to work in an American bureaucracy is you get sort of collective punishment, if you will, or collective change.

Tucker [00:12:27] It's like systemic racism. Everyone's against it, but no one can quite describe what it is.

Bernard Hudson [00:12:31] Yes. Or, you know, you don't point out a particular individual.

Tucker [00:12:35] Right, Exactly. So the DNI is one of the. One of the bureaucratic Boltons. One of the responses to the obvious Intel failure in the run up to the war in Iraq. What is.

Bernard Hudson [00:12:48] It? A war in 2001, actually. So it was the it the there was nine I'm sorry. It was.

Tucker [00:12:55] I beg your pardon? What exactly is it?

Bernard Hudson [00:12:58] It's a good question. So, you know, it's changed over time. So essentially, the DNI, director of national intelligence role is to make sure that there's a single accountable person to the president who is responsible for all of the production and all of the assessments that come out of the Intel community. So there are 18 agencies, including the director of national intelligence, as an office, not a person inside the U.S. Intel community. Before there was a DNI. The director of CIA had two hats, hat one director of the CIA hat to director of something called director of Central Intelligence, which is essentially the process by which the president and the senior leadership get something called the president's daily brief. It's called the PDB. It's a classified newspaper that speaks to, you know, issues of interest overseas to the American government. So the DNI was created. It was given the authority to manage that classified newspaper, if you want to call that that was one of its duties. Duty to was you and I are responsible for looking at how do we do collection across the board. Agency by agency. Which agency is collecting? What type of information is there duplication? Is that duplication necessary? It also has, you know, sort of a mundane but important role in determining budgets and managing not necessarily the execution of not so much execution of budgets, but pulling a budget together for the act and being accountable to talking to Congress about it as it is lived. You know, there are issues that some people have been questions people have raised over the years about why does the DNI need to be as large as it does? It doesn't collect. Unique information. Unique information is collected by the 17 other agencies that are.

Tucker [00:14:56] Out to collated.

Bernard Hudson [00:14:57] It. Collated. The one thing that some folks have talked about, a role that the DNI could do, but it hasn't to date, is a more aggressive assessment of how each of the agencies really contribute to the overall see mission, essentially grading the homework.

Tucker [00:15:14] And can you list the 17 other members of the intelligence community?

Bernard Hudson [00:15:19] Four points. I guess I could probably do it. So I know nine of them are within the Department of Defense, nine, nine of them. So Army Intelligence, Marine Corps Intelligence, Navy intelligence force, Air Force intelligence. Don't forget the Air Force. You have the National Security Agency, which is part of DOD, the National Geospatial Agency, which is an agency that looks at exploiting imagery and making sense of pictures. If you think of the Cuban Missile crisis and you know, the analysts who are looking at crates and boxes to determine, is that just a crate or is that a crate carrying a Russian missile? That's the modern version of where those people went to. Very little known agency, but it's actually has a really important mission. The National Reconnaissance Office, which manages America's satellite system. Then you have seven agencies that are part of other government cabinet level agencies. So, for example, Treasury's Intel section, the Department of Energy's got an Intel section. The State Department has something called the Intelligence and Research INR. You've got the Coast Guard and you have Department of Homeland Security.

Tucker [00:16:38] Why would the Department of Energy have its own Intel component.

Bernard Hudson [00:16:42] So unique to the American Intel community? The Department of Energy has got a bunch of authorities dealing with nuclear weapons and the design of nuclear weapons, both, you know, in the United States. And what we need to know about potential adversary or partner countries that have nuclear weapons. And so they have a very small to very small office inside the Department of Energy. But it's a fair question. People will say, you know, why don't we just have one agency that takes care of all of this for so many different organizations? And I think over the years, certainly within DOD, for the nine agencies they've got, they feel these are technical enough and they need them focused, particularly on that particular service. Like the Air Force has a particular set of things that they need to carry out their mission that are not necessarily the types of information the CIA might collect. Some of the things they may collect would be of use to the Air Force. But there's a lot of things that CIA wouldn't collect that the Air Force, for example, might need and that they prefer to have their own unit. It's mostly analytical to to assess foreign foreign air developments.

Tucker [00:17:50] So the director of national intelligence sits in some way, but not literally atop all of these other agencies.

Bernard Hudson [00:17:58] So they sit atop it. You know, it gets a little complicated when people think, you know, is there a org chart that says the director of national intelligence can give an order that one of these other agencies have to follow, or could it cut their budget if the director of national intelligence wanted? That becomes more of a political issue. And some of that has to do with how money is allocated by Congress. So we talked about, you know, how nine of these agencies are actually within the Defense Department. Well, that means their ultimate boss is the secretary of defense. And the secretary of defense has an enormous say in how those agencies are operated. So really, you know, the DNI authorities are looking at how these agencies really contribute to the overall American collection and exploitation of information effort.

Tucker [00:18:49] President Trump has nominated former away Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence. She's facing enormous resistance in Washington, most of it not public. You came out publicly in support of her. Why did she do that?

Bernard Hudson [00:19:05] So I've noticed her career from early on when she was a congressman and myself and others, you know, CIA officers and other people in the government, I think we're sort of interested in here's somebody who has served our country. She was still in fact, I believe she was a congressman and serving as an Army reservist. Who actually raises some thoughtful questions about, you know, the purposes of American foreign policy. And, you know, during her run for president, with the Democratic Party, you know, her comments and some of the debates I found to be extraordinarily unusual for an American politician. You know, in particular, when she challenged, you know, the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, on, you know, the effects of some of her foreign policy decisions, I think in particular on Libya. So I thought, you know, Tulsi Gabbard was a solid choice to be the DNI. And I was I've been a bit surprised by some of the vitriolic response to her nomination, because when you look at on paper, you know, her background, it's consistent with other people who've had senior jobs in the U.S. Intel community Mike Pompeo, John Ratcliffe, in some ways, Avril Haines, who's now the current director of national intelligence. You know, some of her background is not at all dissimilar to some of them. And in fact, I.

Tucker [00:20:34] Don't think Tulsi Gabbard ever ran a pornographic bookstore. Well, April Haines did, I think, in Baltimore.

Bernard Hudson [00:20:40] I'm not aware of her background on that.

Tucker [00:20:43] But I just for the record, I don't think that Tulsi Gabbard ran a bookstore.

Bernard Hudson [00:20:47] I wouldn't think so. Yes, it would seem to be inconsistent. What was also sort of interesting to me was, you know. She took a lot of heat for, you know, being skeptical on things that I'm not so sure it wasn't right to be skeptical.

Tucker [00:21:06] On, such as.

Bernard Hudson [00:21:07] So, in particular, you know, I've I am sympathetic to when she was a congressman and went to Syria and, you know, was essentially trying to do a fact finding mission to figure out, you know, what is the US policy interest in Syria and, you know, was also trying to get to the bottom of, I think in her mind and I can't speak for her, but you know, to my outside assessment, you know, the question about whether or not the Assad regime used chemical weapons on its own people. Now, the Assad regime was brutal. Both the father and the son ran one of the most diabolically brutal regimes that they've ever had in the Middle East. However, you know, what she was trying to look at was had they escalated the use of chemical weapons? You know, when you think about all the people who were participating in what we call the global war on terrorism or the Iraq veterans, I wouldn't blame any of them for being skeptical about what the US intelligence community might have said about another Arab state having a weapon of mass destruction.

Tucker [00:22:13] On the basis of no disclosed proof at all?

Bernard Hudson [00:22:16] Well, the you know.

Tucker [00:22:19] I push the State Department if this is true, look, what do I know? I was I'm not there. But where's the evidence? None.

Bernard Hudson [00:22:24] Well, and and a lot of the goodwill and trust had been extinguished by what happened in 2003. So, you know, again, in my view of Tulsi Gabbard and other veterans of the Iraq war and occupation, which was an opposed occupation, it was got fairly bloody at times. So if you're there in that country serving and at some point you ponder, you know, how did we exactly get here? And somebody tells you, well, it's you know, the American Intel community, you know, assessed that there was WMDs here. They got it wrong. Flash forward now. You're a congressman. Someone is, you know, laying out yet another case that there might have been chemical weapons use. Maybe you're concerned that is this a prelude to not only just tagging and assigning culpability to an evil regime, but some sort of opening move in a much more aggressive U.S. involvement in that country? So I on that, you know, just as a as someone who myself was in Iraq and very familiar with other people who've served there, I don't blame any of them for wanting to ask 2 or 3, four questions about. The existence of WMD in an Arab state in the first, you know, say, decade after, after what it like to the bigger picture.

Tucker [00:23:44] I never understood. Like Wendy, Congress passed a law requiring me to heat Assad through lots of brutal regimes, the Middle East, some of which we support. I would argue as brutal as Assad's regime. Just my view. But whatever. But there are other countries and. But why was I required? I'm agnostic about Assad. I supported the extent he protected Christians. That's my personal view. But when did it become like some requirement that all good people hate Assad? Where did that come from? I was just confused by it.

Bernard Hudson [00:24:13] Well, I mean, you get sort of, you know, sometimes shifting standards on what, you know, what constitutes a threat. Yes, I do believe that probably by the end of his administration, even the Obama people had come to conclude that Syria was probably not a direct, actionable threat to the United States. Now, it's fair to say that during the occupation of Iraq, that the Syrian government knowingly allowed plenty of people to cross that border who are going to attack US troops in that country. But, you know, there are ways to deal with that. And I think, again, when you look at U.S. policy toward Syria, it's always been fairly hostile. You know, it's never outside of a very short period of time. In the first Gulf War when Bashar Assad, the father, Hafez Assad, the father, had gone along with the Americans to push back Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. We've always had a bad relationship with that regime.

Tucker [00:25:18] So any reason?

Bernard Hudson [00:25:21] It was particularly brutal. It was also a legacy of the Cold War, very close to the Soviets. They it's easy to forget now, but the Syrian regime under the Assad family hosted a number of terrorist organizations that, you know, did attack American interests in Europe and other places. They hosted, you know, terrorist groups. They helped destabilize Lebanon, which was an important, you know, small ally of the United States at the time, in the 70s and 80s. So, I mean, you know, that gets us back to sort of the third world movement and Soviet surrogates, the.

Tucker [00:26:01] Nonaligned countries.

Bernard Hudson [00:26:02] The nonaligned countries. And then you add on to that just sort of a uniquely strange cult of personality where, for example, you know, in Iraq, you know, the name Assad also means, you know, it's a lion in Arabic. People wouldn't want to use the word for a lion in Arabic because that would require them to say the president's name, the name of the president's family. The fear. That the average person had in Syria was astounding. And I remember going there and trip at one point and just it was it was saturated with secret police everywhere. I would call that the not so secret police because you'd be walking around Damascus and you could see clearly these guys there. And really their focus was domestic repression. You know, it was really not looking for foreigners. So it's not to say that you're absolutely right. There are many terrible regimes in the world. The Assads were at least noteworthy within the Arab context.

Tucker [00:27:06] Interesting. So she dared to go talk to Assad, went to Syria. Tulsi Gabbard But, you know, that was 7 or 8 years ago and she never endorsed Assad or anything like that. She's got pretty conventional views on most issues, I would say foreign policy issues. She's not like anti-Israel or she's you know, she's within the mainstream of most things. But the resistance to her is very, very intense. Where do you think that comes from?

Bernard Hudson [00:27:39] I think some of it seems to come from a sense that she is not deferential to the foreign policy consensus. And within Washington, you know, there is there is a sense that there I mean, there clearly is a foreign policy consensus. You know, and that's true of almost any government, you know, any government that has a foreign policy and has security services. You know, there tends to be sort of a a worldview that's coalesced, that generally coalesces and is held by the majority of the people who work there. I think she's a bit of a disruptor when it comes to that and is willing to challenge things. I would agree with you that I don't really understand sort of the vitriol of some of this. I don't think it really is.

Tucker [00:28:24] Whoring traitor to our country.

Bernard Hudson [00:28:26] Well, this gets to the sort of absurd lengths that. People have sometimes fallen to about trying to go after their domestic opponents. I mean, here we have somebody who was and is a lieutenant colonel in the US Army, which means she has security clearance, probably a top secret clearance. And, you know, making statements as serving government officials or recently, you know, retired government officials, that this person is probably a Russian agent. And I find it curious that the same group of folks who might say that, you know, the McCarthy era was extreme. Well, they've.

Tucker [00:29:07] Embraced it completely.

Bernard Hudson [00:29:09] It's you know, the McCarthy era is not a how to manual. It was a cautionary tale.

Tucker [00:29:14] I mean, they got us into war with Russia from my perspective, on the basis of this hysteria. It's it's beyond belief. So here's my concern. Trump gets elected on the explicit promise to end pointless wars, defend the United States when necessary. But we're not. No more wars of choice. They haven't helped. The foreign policy consensus, moreover, isn't working. Obviously, it's not helping the United States in any measurable way, and people are very sick of it. And he said that in 2016 got elected. He said it again in 2024 and got elected. And yet the overwhelming majority of the nominees so far are well within the foreign policy consensus. They're neocons, and she's not. And so don't you think Trump voters deserve an appointee once in a while? I guess that be my view. But that's like too much for DC that this is my read the you can't have anybody who disagrees with Mike Pompeo like not allowed. That seems pretty dysfunctional to me.

Bernard Hudson [00:30:11] Well, I don't get consulted on these sorts of issues.

Tucker [00:30:13] But as an observer like-

Bernard Hudson [00:30:16] So you know part of. I think part of what you're seeing here is, you know, that sort of independent thinking and really questioning in some ways what we got for our efforts of the last 25 years. You know, certainly since 2003. You know, to essentially assess that you have developed inside the United States something I liked or something I've heard people call militarism without victory, where you have this sort of. Consistent push to the most aggressive options on the table.

Tucker [00:30:54] But you're not Sparta. You keep losing. Well.

Bernard Hudson [00:30:57] And we certainly you know, we don't gain much even from, you know, some of the ones that we've won on. That's right. And so I think. I'm not sure that a lot of the professional national security establishment has as a group really come to that conclusion yet. I think individually, you know, when you talk to folks who had careers in the military, the security services, State Department, they'll privately admit that, you know, if you name Libya, Iraq. The certainly the occupation of Afghanistan post the death of Osama bin Laden. Then it's really hard to say that we really got very much as a country out of that. But there certainly, you know, is, you know. Relevancy that you get as the United States by being able to sort of impose your will on situations. And it's important if you're going to be a superpower, to be able to impose your will if you have to do so. What has changed, I think, over the last 20 years is the threshold to want to impose that well seems to have gotten down to a fairly hair trigger. And so things that I would think we would have stayed out of when we had a standoff with the Soviet Union or at least thought twice about. People are now a little bit of a knee jerk reaction that, you know, let's let's move this two steps up the escalation ladder. Not always warranted.

Tucker [00:32:29] Well, and reckless because the consequences of misjudging and you can't only control one side, of course, yours.

Bernard Hudson [00:32:37] Well, you know, back to you. You know, it gets to your question on, you know, why Tulsi Gabbard. I, I like skepticism in senior intelligence officers in my experience. You know, being overly credulous or being willing to sort of believe the most extreme version of an event, even if it later turns out to be true. Certainly at the senior levels, it's well worth it to be to have some people in the loop. Yes. Who are prepared to ask some very hard questions and to suffer the consequences from asking those hard questions. If you really want to be an effective director of national intelligence, you probably have to go in to work every day with the expectation that this might be my last day. I might be forced to say something or do something that will be unpopular, unwelcome. But I think it's necessary for the system to have a couple of folks around who are prepared to take that risk. And from what I saw of her career and I don't know her personally, she seems like somebody who, despite being on the fast track in the Democratic Party, she was the vice chair of the DNC presidential candidate, was willing to put her personal ethics and personal views, you know. On the table and say, you know, for this I'm prepared to suffer. And that's and that's a good thing to have for for the American Intel enterprise, in my opinion.

Tucker [00:34:03] It seems vital. So then the question arises like, where's the oversight of these incredibly powerful agencies which have, you know, by definition, the power to spy on people and kill them and do someone from outside should be making certain that what they're doing was within the bounds of the Constitution and decency. And I don't see anybody I see the House and Senate Intel committees as completely controlled by the. I see. I mean, I've seen it. Is that like what's the view from within CIA and that there's any like anybody in the House and Senate, particularly the Senate, who will say, you can't do that, we'll pull your budget if you do that.

Bernard Hudson [00:34:43] So I think there have been instances where, you know, you've had that sort of oversight. Now, some of it, you know, goes back historically to your church committee. So which is that, you know, long two years. That's a long time ago. That's sort of a high watermark of, you know, oversight. Having a significant effect on the i c f since then. And, you know, in my experience was mostly, you know, post-9-11 in dealing with Congress, that there was fairly robust interest in what the agency does. To be fair, there was a lot of support, you know, for the AC in the in Congress. Historically, it generally is. You know, the CIA. Would say that that's because, you know, they try to be consistent with what they think, you know, Congress will accept and what the administration wants. It's always worth remembering that the I see in the end. Works for the executive branch and the president. Obviously, their budgets and some of their authorities are controlled by the laws that Congresses Congress puts on them. Your question is a really good one. On. Is in a low trust society or a society where trust is now at a premium. You know, how how does the AC manage? The suspicions of an increasingly larger number of people in the American population.

Tucker [00:36:05] Just say, as the son of a federal employee who spent most of his life in D.C., I always wanted to trust the government and in fact, did. And it was, you know, learning that what government was doing with my money in my name, I was so outraged by it. I have no more trust. And so I think that I mean, that's just my perspective. I'm sure everyone has a different perspective. But I applied to CIA and didn't get in. But but that's a measure of how much I believed in the system. And so from my perspective, it's low trust because they violated our trust.

Bernard Hudson [00:36:36] And I think, you know, however we got here, I think one of the things that I would like to see the I see and those who manage it accept is that we really are here, that this is, you know, a situation where highly partizan atmosphere in the United States, not everybody is going to really flexibly trust the security services. And if they really want to be able to perform their mission appropriately and effectively, they've got to be in a place where the people trust them.

Tucker [00:37:04] But on whose behalf are they performing it? I mean, they have no authority at all other than that conferred to them by the president of the United States, period, because his authority comes from voters. That's our system. And he confers that to the executive branch agencies, of which CIA is one. And so if he doesn't want them to do something, they have no moral or constitutional right to do it, period. I don't I don't see.

Bernard Hudson [00:37:27] It as as a as a legal measure. You know, if the president, you know, as long as lawful.

Tucker [00:37:32] Well, exactly.

Bernard Hudson [00:37:33] He gives an order to the you know, to the ice, especially the CIA, which directly works for the president, doesn't even work. You know, we talked about the nine other Intel agencies. They work for the secretary of defense, by extension, the president, of course. Yes. They you know, they have to obey lawful orders that are given, but they're.

Tucker [00:37:50] Not allowed to freelance. Like by whose authority are they doing that? How can how can and not You see, I don't mean to pick on one the most famous of all the federal agencies, but I mean, there are many others, maybe all of them doing things the president ran against that he did not authorize. Which in other words, they have no legal or moral right to do, but they do it. And no one's ever punished like. On whose authority do they think they're acting?

Bernard Hudson [00:38:18] But yeah, I think, you know, come 20th January, you know, we're going to, you know, once the executive one presumes that there'll be a number of executive orders that will come out of the White House, you know, that the president will be able to lawfully provide. At that point. You know, if people in the AC or the AC leadership is not responsive, you know, there's plenty of mechanisms for a president and a White House, a national security advisor, to determine, you know, if they're not in what they say in the in the ICI not aligned with what the president wants him to do. President and the director of CIA have very broad authority to remove people. Very broad.

Tucker [00:38:56] I'm hardly an expert on CIA. I am an expert on elected officials in D.C. and they're all afraid of getting killed or blackmailed. They think that the Intel agencies will kill them. They actually think that. I don't know if you are aware of that. I'm aware of that. So they think that. Why do you think they think that?

Bernard Hudson [00:39:12] You know, that wasn't my experience, you know, working with, you know, oversight when I work with them, you know. I know. I've sadly just never heard anybody say that to me.

Tucker [00:39:22] I had a member of the Intel committee elected. Elected official tell me that he was on the Oversight Committee overseeing the O.C., that they were spying on him, that they they're reading us texts and listening to his calls, and there was nothing he could do about it. And I said, why don't you hold a press conference? I mean, that's like so outrageous. It's illegal. Can't do that. You saw the chairman of the Senate when he violated some agreement. See, I thought that she had with them and they spied on her. They they spied on Senate staff. They got caught and known. Right. So and actually, the Senate didn't do anything about it. They didn't say, you know, we're going to expose your black budget or, you know, defund parts of you. We're going to fire you. No one did anything. So what does that tell you? If the agency can spy on sitting senators, we're supposed to be in charge of them with their budget anyway. What does that tell you about how afraid people are?

Bernard Hudson [00:40:25] So let me take this in reverse order. Yes. So I think you're talking about the. Feinstein That's exact statement. So, as you know, my understanding of how that happened is that they accused the agency of being able to look at the computers.

Tucker [00:40:41] Correct. In the Senate.

Bernard Hudson [00:40:44] That were in the CIA building that the Senate staff had access to, and that there were two government computers with CIA information on it and that all of those computers come with a warning, both written on the the on the cover of the computer. And when you boot it up that this is a government system and it's fully auditable. So it's my understanding that the computers in question, you know, that, you know, Senator Feinstein said were improperly accessed by the agency, were, in fact, you know, CIA computers that were made available to them. But with the clear warnings that anything on this computer that you do, not some other computer that you would be on, not your personal handheld device. Those computers are accessible by CIA security, just like every other computer that the CIA buys and makes available for its own employees. So that there's an audit function on all of that. Now, I had never heard, you know, that the allegations ever extended to other computer systems that people in the Senate were using that were not provided by the CIA. Now, again, I'll caution that I you know, I'm not I wasn't directly involved in.

Tucker [00:42:00] The pretty sure that Senator Feinstein said and alleged that CIA was spying on her staff in order to push back against her expected pushback against them, in other words, to control her.

Bernard Hudson [00:42:14] I was aware she said that. Again, you know, my understanding is the only, you know, audits that were going on of any computers were ones that were clearly marked as this is a computer owned by the government, subject to audit. So I, I can't speak to, you know, what I can't speak to as never in my career. Did anybody ever approach me and say anything about.

Tucker [00:42:37] Identifying on members of Congress?

Bernard Hudson [00:42:39] Never. No one ever. No one ever asked me to do it. No one I know ever told me that they were involved in it. And it's a fairly small place, Right? I'm not saying that.

Tucker [00:42:49] So if a member of a congressional Intel oversight committee says I believe CIA or NSA is spying on my personal communications in an effort to control me, do you think that's a crazy thing to say?

Bernard Hudson [00:43:04] I think it's troubling if any member of Congress believes that.

Tucker [00:43:08] You not only believed it. I think the person believed it told me in a restaurant. But I said, that's completely outrageous. And actually, you can't have a democracy under those circumstances. So you should hold a press conference, say, I can't do that. So really, to me, it's unprovable. Whether or not they were spying on his phone, maybe he's a nutcase. Pretty famous person, but could be a nutcase. But what I was struck by was the fear. Like, I can't do that.

Bernard Hudson [00:43:33] And that's, I would say what you just told me. That would be if I were still in government. That's the thing that would trouble me, is that if our relationship with our oversight has reached a sort of a level where they would entertain that type of a.

Tucker [00:43:46] Where you're more where CIA is more powerful than the people overseeing CIA. That's not good.

Bernard Hudson [00:43:50] I mean, again, in all my interactions, when I would go down and testify or provide, you know, background briefings to Congress, it was always with the understanding, you know, that the CIA has an office. You know that. Deals with collaboration and oversight. It was always like, you've got to make sure everything you say is accurate. If you say something that's not accurate, you've got to come back and explain that you got it wrong, that you submitted something that was, you know, in error. It was always deferential in my level and with what I experienced. But if I had become aware that, you know, a senior senator had said something like that or a congressman at any level. Yeah, I'd say we definitely have a problem. We need to reestablish trust. Well, I have. However, it has to happen. And if somebody's never told me that we're spying on. You know, Congressman, you know, I wouldn't have followed an order like that. And most of my friends that I know who were there wouldn't have followed an order like that.

Tucker [00:44:52] I just. I never believed any of this stuff. And then the closer I got to it, the more I thought there's something really wrong here. And that the almost without exception, the members of Congress who are the most vocal cheerleaders for the ICC are the ones with the most to hide in their personal lives. I've definitely noticed that theme. Definitely. And I feel like there's probably a connection. Does that make sense?

Bernard Hudson [00:45:17] Again, I. I never saw or heard or even got a whiff of anything like that. You know, Washington just played by some pretty hard rules and, you know, within the political world. But, you know, again, if I'd ever been in a meeting, you know, where somebody had said, hey, you know, we're going to, you know, dish some dirt on some congressman. It would have been utterly shocking and appalling. Yes. And I think he and most of the employees I know would refuse to carry out an order like that, or we would actually think this is some sort of bizarre joke. I just I just can't see how you would easily be able to do that without other people knowing. It's a very gossipy place, the CIA.

Tucker [00:46:04] It's just it's so striking to me that. Members of Congress who represent districts where just, for example, you know, the overwhelming majority in Republican districts, the overwhelming majority of their voters don't want to send another $20 billion to Ukraine just to give one among many examples. And then they show up, they go into the skiff, they get the briefings, and they're in favor of doing something that their own constituents hate. And so there's a control mechanism in place there. Obviously, whether it's, you know, as sinister as, you know, whether it's sinister or not, I don't know. But what is that?

Bernard Hudson [00:46:43] Why do you think? You know, just like any mature bureaucracy, you know, the the Intel community, any federal agency can make a very good case for why they think something needs to be done and I mean a case on its merits. You know, so, you know, Kissinger used to have an old joke that he would get three types of briefings. You know, one is or three types of options, total nuclear war, abject surrender and something in the middle, you know, it that's still a fairly common play across the U.S. government. So it is entirely possible that, you know. Busy congressmen and senators who have an awful lot of things that they've got to be focused on. They come in to deal with an agency that they have oversight on. Generally speaking, that agency has an information advantage over them on, you know, details and can lay out a very good case for what it is they want to do. I'm not saying it's necessarily a wise case, but they can lay out a compelling case. And there is a sense I did notice in my career of a deference to, well, these are the experts, you know, they're careerists who've been doing this for all their life. You know, pushing back on that could make, you know, it's a bit of a lonely place to be, so. I think, you know, in some ways, you know, Senate and House staffs, they don't have a lot of them. You know, they have a lot people think they do. But when you think about all the things that they've got to evaluate, especially when they deal with, you know, complex issues, war and peace, national security, there's an awful lot of deference. It does apply to the two agencies.

Tucker [00:48:28] When Senator Chuck Schumer, head Democrat in the Senate, says to Rachel Maddow, man, Trump made a huge mistake messing around with the AOC. They they'll screw you six ways to Sunday.

Bernard Hudson [00:48:39] Yeah, that's a hard one to square that. You know, I remember when that statement was made and. Again, you know, wasn't in the part of the CIA that I had any access to. I. But that's the sort of statement that doesn't contribute. In any positive way.

Tucker [00:48:59] But does it reflect reality?

Bernard Hudson [00:49:03] It certainly didn't reflect the reality that I was a part of. You know, I retired in 2017. Clearly it's become fairly toxic, you know, in Washington. And, you know, it's not unfair to say that some of that toxicity does, you know, reach into, you know, the government, you know, the federal agencies. When people make statements like that, you know, whether it's bravado or, you know, they think it's true. It fuels that mistrust.

Tucker [00:49:39] So one of the things that the Intel community could do to restore trust is declassify things that have no legitimate reason to be secret. Like any files pertaining to the Kennedy assassination from 62 years ago. And yet they are ferocious. The CIA in particular, ferocious opponent fact because I bumped up against it myself, ferocious opponents of declassifying that information. Why do you think that is?

Bernard Hudson [00:50:06] So there is a sort of a reflexive. Circling of wagons when it comes to secrecy in the AC. I think in the case of the Kennedy assassination and probably things certainly dating back maybe even less than that, there's an overwhelming public benefit. To sharing that data.

Tucker [00:50:26] But in that specific case, it was so long ago, so many books been written about it. It's it's a cliche. It's almost a parody at this point. The Kennedy assassination. It's like if you can't give an inch on that. And by the way, as of two weeks ago, I happen to know they were still fighting it like ferociously. No, you cannot appoint that person. That person might disclose those files. What, like what is.

Bernard Hudson [00:50:50] That? So what I'll say next, I'll say as a as a person who spent my most of my adult life, you know, in the Intel community. I would be very curious as to how somebody would try to justify that. I mean, the only thing that I could think of is that, you know, government files would include theories of a crime or event that later get to be disproven. So in the early days of, you know, some kind of an event, you know, you're going to have agencies and parts of your agency and things. But I think American democracy can handle that.

Tucker [00:51:28] And demands it. I think the United States.

Bernard Hudson [00:51:31] Well, I mean and I mean, the president has absolute declassification authority somewhere so people can dislike it. But if the president says you will declassify everything related to subjects. His declassification authority is as broad and absolute as his pardon power.

Tucker [00:51:53] Why would Pompeo fight so hard to keep those files secret?

Bernard Hudson [00:51:57] I don't I really don't know that it's a if the president had said that they wanted something declassified. I don't understand why they would say that, you know, they would push back on it.

Tucker [00:52:10] Do you think CIA had a role in the president's murder in 1963?

Bernard Hudson [00:52:14] I personally don't. You know, if I had to guess, you know, could I see a situation where dots didn't get connected that should have been connected? You know, things dropped off the table. Somebody looked at a piece of information and said, well, that's not really all that important. That said, you know, I have friends of mine who are retired, you know, CIA officers who who at least entertain the idea that the age of 1962 or 1963, you know, it's possible. I don't personally see that. But this could all be cleared up. If they just put out whatever they have.

Tucker [00:52:58] Yeah. I mean, it seems very unlikely to me after all these years, there could be anything in those files which are, of course, physical files that.

Bernard Hudson [00:53:06] Yes, they're all paper.

Tucker [00:53:07] Yeah, of course. You know, really, they're still. They're sitting in a manila folder, like telling us who the assassin was working for or whatever. Telling us the truth. I have a lot of trouble believing they'd still be there if they were ever there. The only reason that I'm focused on it is because I know for a fact that there are CIA employees. I know this for a fact desert, in fact, I just was hearing about it are trying to prevent certain people from getting jobs on the basis of their belief that those people will push for declassification.

Bernard Hudson [00:53:40] I think, again, I. Back from the people I knew when I was in the agency and the people I know who are still there. Yeah. If I were still in, I would reflect my reflexive position would be okay. There's there's really no reason that something that long ago can't be declassified in toto.

Tucker [00:54:01] What about the 911 files? So we're moving on. You know, we're getting close to 25 years later. All the governments in that region are different from what there were Saudi governments completely different. I don't understand. And there are all these theories about what actually happened, and it's clear that we don't know the full story, whether the full story is sinister or not. You know, I hope not, you know, but I don't know. You would do a lot to heal American society by putting doubts to rest. And if these really are like dangerous conspiracy theories, then prove it. Like, why wouldn't. They release all those files?

Bernard Hudson [00:54:40] Well, I'll go on the record as saying, you know, I believe 911 was perpetrated by. We said it was. Yes. You know, and some of those people are still down at Guantanamo Bay waiting for justice. Others are dead. I'm very confident the IOC had nothing to do with no deep state actors or, you know. Putting demolitions in the ring of towers in New York. There really was a plane that hit the Pentagon. I think. I think you could make a good case. That there's no reason not to declassify most of this stuff. What I would expect, you know, might be troublesome. It's possible that, you know, you know, some of the early documents are wrong, you know, materially wrong. You know, you're when you're reporting on contemporaneous events, some of your reports will be wrong. I think people can understand that. Okay. This is something that came out, you know, a week after 911. It's incorrect. It was proven. It was a theory of the crime that was disproven. I personally believe if it would advance, you know, building more trust with the government and the AC, which I think is absolutely critical to having, you know, effective national security defense. I, I personally don't think that there's any reason you can't declassify most of those things, if not all of them.

Tucker [00:56:05] I agree with you on all counts. It is critical to national security and defense to have trust. Between the population and the government and employees to protect it. Right. So trust is not just like the thing you wish you had is this thing you need in order for the system to continue. So, yeah. And if people believe that there wasn't a plane that flew into the Pentagon or that the CIA or Mossad or somebody else other than the 19 hijackers, did this prove them wrong? Like, wouldn't that it would just be good for everybody, would it not?

Bernard Hudson [00:56:37] Yeah. I mean, you know, I remember years ago, actually, you know, you know, some people in al Qaeda discussing this, you know, weirdly, you know, they were upset that people were trying to take their credit from them for, you know, doing what they did on 911 because, you know, for them, it was an important part of their. You know, their credibility with their own folks, that they were able to pull this off. So I, I see no reason that they probably can't.

Tucker [00:57:02] Then why the effort And CIA has I think it's been it has been doctor and participated in this effort to discredit people who ask questions or who have alternate theories. Why not prove them wrong rather than resort to character assassination, conspiracy theorists, etc..

Bernard Hudson [00:57:19] So again, you know, when I was in the agency and what me and my colleagues did, we were focused on collecting foreign actionable foreign intelligence abroad. You know, if somebody on the Internet had something to say, you know, that was. Completely at odds with what we knew to be the truth. You just sort of baked that in to how you did what you did. It's a political question. It's really a White House decision. You know, if the White House had decided, you know what? It's in our national interests. To put everything out on the table that we have.

Tucker [00:57:55] You're making a fair point. At some point that's.

Bernard Hudson [00:57:57] And a president can make that happen. Just like a president can pardon anybody. A president can. Bulk declassify data if they want to. And there's literally nothing. The federal workforce or the agencies could do to push back on that.

Tucker [00:58:14] I'm praying for that to happen because I think it's necessary for healing sincerely. Too much is classified, too much, too secret. It's unfair on its face, but it's also corrosive of trust. I think that's my view. Tell us about security clearances. Security clearances? Let me just say for context, as someone who worked in D.C.. Are held by a lot of people who are not federal employees or contractors like retired people. I have security clearances and they use those to make money in the private sector or from government working as contractors. And it seems like people leave government service and just continue on with their security clearance, which from. My perspective as a U.S. citizen is paid his taxes for 55 years. Seems a little unfair. Like, why should John Brennan is not a federal employee get to see top secret information? But I can't. Like what? He's not a federal employee. I don't really understand that system.

Bernard Hudson [00:59:08] So, you know, I'll caution this by I'm not an expert on how they do what we call contractor clearances.

Tucker [00:59:14] Yeah.

Bernard Hudson [00:59:15] But, you know, here's after 911, the federal workforce didn't grow as much as the work grew. And so what happened was there was an increasing reliance on private companies. To do and to augment the federal intelligence community. Those companies would have to hire people who would need to get security clearances. And those security clearances have to be the equivalent of the ones that a federal employee had to do the same work. So in many cases, what you had were federal employees who reached the point of retirement. But let's say they're still relatively young, 5052, and they go to work for these contracting companies that have contracts back in the government. And in that case, they need to maintain their clearance and can lawfully retain their clearance because they're working on a government contract through an approved vendor.

Tucker [01:00:14] Right.

Bernard Hudson [01:00:16] Now, you probably have a much smaller number of instances where people who don't fit into that category might still be authorized to have access to a security clearance and occasional briefings from the government. And what happens? That's, again, a very narrow number of folks, usually cabinet secretaries, people who have careers where they're still, you know, engaged with say, you know, foreign policy in the private sector. And the government deems that it's advantageous to keep these people updated on certain developments. Usually, they don't get access to the same information that a in-service federal employee might get, but they might be given a briefing on, you know, developments in a certain part of the world because they travel there a lot. They are and still be an effective voice for American policy if they're informed. But that's a very tiny.

Tucker [01:01:17] So Tony Blinken, for example, is now the secretary of state. He will be until January 20th, God willing. And his views are completely at odds with those of the incoming president, completely at odds. And he's working hard to undermine the incoming Trump administration in Ukraine, pushing to get Ukraine in NATO's or some insane thing like that. He plans to retain his security clearance. He's hired a lawyer to argue the case if it comes to that. I happen to know why. On what grounds could Tony Blinken, even if he thought he did a good job as secretary of state, which I want to say once again, I don't. But like, why does he have a right to a security clearance when he leaves federal service as an appointee?

Bernard Hudson [01:01:59] Well, nobody has a right to it. Right. And again, you know, the. Dodd. And whatever the home agency is, where your clearance is, quote, being held, have an absolute right to grant, revoke or not issue a clearance. And certainly a president, if they did if the president decided this person does not need access to classified information, it would be unusual for a president to sort of name somebody like that. But to then as far as I understand, it's well within his authority to say this person doesn't need a security clearance. And the person would have to be able to articulate, even if the president wasn't involved in making a decision like that, the person petitioning to get a clearance or to keep it. Would have to have an a reason that's actionable and to the benefit of the government to do so. You know, I'm not aware of the specifics of of, you know, a former cabinet level officer trying to keep a clearance. I would imagine, if the new administration said that they didn't approve it or concur. That it's essentially an unreviewable decision. Probably being Washington, you could probably find an attorney who would take your case on. But, you know, presumably, even if you had a clearance, they don't have to actually give you any access to anything just because you have a clearance. It isn't a badge that allows you to get into a physical place and access data. Somebody still has to proactively check that you have a clearance and then brief you. Right.

Tucker [01:03:31] But the reason I think that is significant is because it sets up legal penalties for the transfer of classified information to you if you don't possess a clearance. So in other words, if you're Tony Blinken and you leave January 20th, you want to continue to undermine the administration, which he does, you can remain in contact with your former employees at State or throughout the US government, your allies, and receive classified information. And no one is breaking the law. But if you don't have a clearance, you know, then you could get John Kiriakou for it.

Bernard Hudson [01:04:00] So and again, a you know, an administration has broad authorities about who can have a clearance and just because a former official wants one. There's they don't have a right to keep it.

Tucker [01:04:16] What do you make of these apparent terror attacks in New Orleans? Well, the attack in New Orleans and then the exploding cybertruck in Las Vegas.

Bernard Hudson [01:04:27] So, you know, it's early. And one of the things I learned, you know, in my time dealing with terrorist actions and in the Intel world is, you know, you want to be careful about what you think you believe. You still get the story. What we know so far about New Orleans is it looks like. Other types of attacks we've seen over the years, sort of somebody becomes self-radicalized and then carries out, you know, an extreme act with little preparation time ahead of ahead of the actual attack. So often in these type of cases, you know, somebody may have been thinking about doing some violent action. Something happens in their life. They see, think or believe something and they simply are triggered.

Tucker [01:05:09] Yeah.

Bernard Hudson [01:05:10] The, you know, initial information from, you know, that I was reading earlier today was that the attack or whatever happened? You know, the explosion in front o

Show less