JR: Yeah, we were pouring so much money into the war on terror, hundreds of billions of dollars ,that the FBI and the CIA and all these other agencies didn't really know what to do with it. And so they gave money to everybody who-- basically anybody who said they had a silver bullet to solve the war on terror.
You know one of the stories I talk about is how the special operations command set up a front company to try and use as an intelligence platform in the middle east and I was told of allegations that this Palestinian at the middle of it was trying to use the bank accounts of...set up by the government for this intelligence operation to launder $300 million; and I had a weird, very weird meeting with the FBI because I was told the FBI was conducting a criminal investigation of this Pentagon intelligence operation, and I go in to talk to the FBI...I was told by the FBI press office, 'well, they'll talk to you if you tell them what you found out, they'll tell you what they found out.' And so I go in and I start talking about what I've heard about this operation, and then like 7 FBI agents sitting there in this windowless conference room and they won't tell me their names, and I start talking and after I'm finished I stop and say, 'Do you guys...have you heard of these same things?' And all 7 of them just stare at me and don't say a word. And then I keep talking some more and I stop and I look up...and they all just stare at me and don't say a word. And what obviously was going on is they were investigating the same thing but they were under enormous pressure from the Pentagon not to do anything about it.
Rob: So yeah, and you did this more than once...you describe in your book, where you went and you talked to them, told them what you had, and they said nothing.
JR: Right. Yeah, it was bizarre. It was so weird and I think...what I was told is the FBI came under enormous pressure from special operations command and the Pentagon to let the Pentagon investigate this themselves. The fact that somebody was trying to use the bank accounts set up by a special operations command covert operation for laundering hundreds of millions of dollars, and nobody wanted to look into it.
Rob: I just want to take a step back through. You go to the FBI, there's 7 of the sitting there stone-faced and silent, and you tell them what you know, and they say nothing...and then you do the same thing again. As a journalist why are you going to the FBI and telling them what you have? What are you hoping to get out of it?
JR: I wanted them to tell me what they knew. I was told by the press officer of the FBI, yeah we'll tell...you know, you tell us what you have and we'll tell you what we have. Which, you know, it's a common journalism thing...you know, you've got to talk a little bit to find out...to get comment or get response from people in the government to see what they want to say, how are they going to comment -- because I had been told that they were conducting a criminal investigation of this. And what I realized is they just...their criminal investigation of this operation was so sensitive and so secret that they didn't want to admit it, even though I was doing the same thing.
Rob: And maybe also, illegal too, huh?
JR: Yeah. Yeah, and they just...I think this was, they were counterintelligence agents in the FBI and they were-- I think they never talk to the press and so this was a very weird meeting. I was told later that that meeting was considered legendary within the FBI.
Rob: Why?
JR: Because it was so bizarre (laughs)...all these guys just sitting there staring at me, and they didn't want to deny...they couldn't deny what I was saying -- they couldn't say I had it wrong, but they didn't want to admit that I had it right either. And finally I got confirmation later that there was an investigation, but it was just so weird sitting there with all these FBI agents who clearly were investigating the same thing I was. Clearly what had happened is I'd found out something that nobody in the government wanted to talk about.
Rob: So do you think that talking to the FBI did anything...affected your work or the case?
JR: I don't know. I don't think so. I mean I think they just...by that time they probably had already been told to drop the case or were in the process of dropping it I think, because they...or were not...I don't know about dropping it but they weren't...I don't know exactly what they were doing, but I just...I was later told that the Pentagon put pressure on the FBI not to keep going after that investigation because the Pentagon promised that they would investigate it themselves.
Rob: Okay.
JR: It was a very weird...it was a very weird experience for me.
Rob: Now what you're talking about here, that was in your chapter, I think the Rosetta chapter or the Alarbus?
JR: It's called Alarbus...
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