The Debrief With MyronGainesX - The Arrest Of Highest Ranked CIA Russian Double Agent： Harold J. Nicholson

00:00:01.000 All right, we are live. What's up, guys? Welcome to FedIt. I know my voice is a little still under the weather, but we got a great show for you guys.

00:00:06.460 We're going to talk about espionage between the United States and Russia. This is going to be a good one, guys. Let's get into it, man. 1.00

00:00:15.020 I was a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, okay, guys? HSI.

00:00:18.280 The cases that I did mostly were human smuggling and drug trafficking.

00:00:23.380 No one else has these documents, by the way.

00:00:25.680 Here's what FedIt covers.

00:00:26.800 Dr. Lafredo confirmed lacerations due to stepping on glass.

00:00:33.640 Murder investigations.

00:00:34.640 You see him reaching in his jacket. You don't know.

00:00:36.920 And he's positioning.

00:00:37.560 Been on February 13, 2019.

00:00:39.260 You're facing two counts of two meditative murderers.

00:00:42.400 Racketeering and Rico conspiracies.

00:00:44.240 Young Slime Life here and after referred to as YSL.

00:00:46.780 This is 6ix9ine, and then this is Billy Seiko right here. 0.82

00:00:50.260 Now, when they first started, guys, 6ix9ine ran with me. 0.98

00:00:52.900 I'm a Fed. I'm watching this music video.

00:00:55.120 You know, I'm Bobby Mahala. 0.99

00:00:56.340 Hey, this shit lit. 0.99

00:00:57.240 But at the same time, I'm pausing. 0.99

00:00:58.700 Oh, wait, who this?

00:00:59.960 Right?

00:01:00.380 Oh, who's that in the back?

00:01:02.560 Firearms and violent crime.

00:01:03.900 A.K.A. Bush Icy violated.

00:01:05.760 You're wanting to stay away from the victim.

00:01:07.460 A.K.A. Bush Icy arrested after shooting at King of Diamonds, Miami strip club, injured one person.

00:01:11.480 This is the one that's going to fuck him up because this gun is not tracing me. 0.98

00:01:15.020 Well, it happened at the gun range. 0.99

00:01:16.180 Here's your boy, 42 Doug, right here on the left.

00:01:18.440 Okay. 0.99

00:01:18.780 Sex trafficking and sex crimes. 0.72

00:01:20.160 They can effectively link him to paying an underage girl. 0.63

00:01:23.300 And the first bomb went off right here.

00:01:27.940 Suspect to set down a back path on the site of the second explosion inspired by Al-Qaeda.

00:01:33.020 Two terrorists, brothers, the Zokar Sarnev and Tamerlan Sarnev.

00:01:37.560 When the cartels shipped drugs into the country.

00:01:39.640 As this guy got arrested for espionage, okay, trading secrets with the Russians for monetary compensation.

00:01:46.000 The largest corrupt police bust in New Orleans history.

00:01:50.580 The days of the police are gone.

00:01:52.220 So he was in this bad boy.

00:01:53.740 We're going to go over his past, the gang guy, so that this all makes sense.

00:02:04.100 All right.

00:02:04.800 We're back.

00:02:05.260 What's up, guys?

00:02:05.740 Welcome to Fed It Man.

00:02:06.800 So sorry again for being under the weather.

00:02:09.400 As you guys know, we had our one night subscriber party.

00:02:11.280 It was lit.

00:02:12.540 I drank too much vodka and it was not good.

00:02:16.560 But that's probably the first time that I got lit. 0.99

00:02:19.380 And damn. 0.97

00:02:21.860 I haven't been like that since 2021, February, my birthday. 0.99

00:02:26.120 So yeah, it was wild, guys.

00:02:28.600 So it was a good time.

00:02:30.000 A lot of people showed out.

00:02:31.060 It was a boat party.

00:02:32.100 We had a bunch of YouTubers in the house, man. 0.99

00:02:33.640 Shout out to everybody that came through.

00:02:35.200 Love all you guys.

00:02:36.400 But I guess in the spirit of vodka, we're going to go ahead and get right into today's episode.

00:02:40.820 We're going to be covering Harold James Nicholson, guys, the highest ranking CIA officer that was arrested for espionage.

00:02:46.760 So for this to all make sense, you guys got to understand the Cold War.

00:02:48.980 So let's get right into this thing.

00:02:50.160 All right.

00:02:50.720 The Cold War, guys, is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc.

00:03:02.200 The term Cold War is used because there was no large scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported opposing sides in major regional conflicts known as proxy wars.

00:03:11.920 The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers following the temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945.

00:03:21.700 Aside from nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via direct means such as psychological warfare, propagandic campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry of sports events, and technological competitions such as the space race.

00:03:38.940 And what we're going to focus on today is this right here, guys, espionage.

00:03:42.160 So what is espionage exactly?

00:03:44.720 Cold War espionage describes intelligence gathering activities during the Cold War between the Western Allies, primarily the U.S. and Western Europe, and the Eastern Bloc, primarily the Soviet Union and Allied countries of the Warsaw Pact.

00:03:55.100 Both relied on the wide range of military and civilian agencies in this pursuit.

00:03:58.640 And as you guys know, there's different agencies that are involved in this fight, but the two big ones are the CIA and the KGB.

00:04:05.520 All right.

00:04:05.840 Now, that brings us to the subject that we're going to be talking about in today's episode, which is this guy, Harold James Nicholson.

00:04:11.800 Born November 17, 1950, is a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was twice convicted of spying for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, SVR.

00:04:20.920 Now, CIA, as you guys know, is the United States' primary intelligence agency.

00:04:26.640 It's known formally as the agency and historically as the company.

00:04:29.960 It's a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence and performing covert actions, a.k.a. waterboarding.

00:04:41.420 And for you guys that are wondering, I'm sure you guys remember that we had Andrew Postamante, right, who was a former CIA officer.

00:04:49.080 Really great show.

00:04:50.380 I really want you guys to go check that out.

00:04:52.340 It was a very high IQ conversation.

00:04:53.740 We talked about torture tactics.

00:04:56.320 We talked about interrogation.

00:04:57.600 We talked about counterintelligence, espionage.

00:04:59.960 We talked about a bunch of this stuff.

00:05:01.100 So if you guys like that type of stuff, man, go ahead and check it out.

00:05:04.620 Real-life James Bond-type content, okay?

00:05:06.760 So yeah, the CIA, guys, is the United States' primary intelligence agency.

00:05:12.180 Now we got the SVR, or the ops, okay, for lack of a better term.

00:05:16.600 The Foreign Settlement Service of the Russian Federation, okay, I can't pronounce all that, or SVRF, is Russia's external intelligence agency focusing mainly on civilian affairs.

00:05:25.280 The SVRF succeeded the first chief directorate of the KGB in December 1991.

00:05:32.780 The SVRF has its headquarters in the Yersenevo district of Moscow.

00:05:37.060 And as you guys know, the KGB was basically the CIA equivalent during the Soviet Union era, okay?

00:05:43.720 And they came down, obviously, with the Soviet collapse in the early 1990s, aka 1991.

00:05:48.480 So yeah, now that this all makes sense to you guys and you understand what the Cold War is, what espionage is, what the CIA is, and what the SVR, aka the KGB, is, right, formerly known as the KGB, now this is going to start to make a little bit more sense when we go into this documentary.

00:06:05.140 Basically, guys, there's been a longstanding war between – I mean, hell, it's going on right now.

00:06:09.900 I mean, you guys look at the war with Ukraine, right, the conflict with Ukraine and Russia.

00:06:14.120 It's basically a proxy war for the United States.

00:06:15.760 We had a pretty good discussion on that as well with Andrew Bostamante on how proxy wars, propaganda, espionage, you know, setting up certain things in different countries to set up certain situations for geopolitical climates to clash and war start.

00:06:31.960 All of this, guys, is what happens with opposing countries.

00:06:36.580 Even though we do have trade with Russia, they're definitely an adversary when it comes to the intelligence realm, okay? 0.57

00:06:42.300 And we've been spying on them, and they've been spying on us for decades, okay, guys?

00:06:46.940 So there's a whole unit in the FBI dedicated to Russian counterintelligence as well as there's also a unit dedicated to Chinese counterintelligence.

00:06:56.920 And I didn't know this, but we learned it from the interview with Andrew.

00:07:01.300 The Israelis have a really good intelligence agency as well.

00:07:05.540 So, yeah.

00:07:06.640 Guys, go check that interview out.

00:07:07.960 It was awesome.

00:07:08.660 Obviously, after you watch this one, we'll go check that one out.

00:07:11.500 A lot of gems were dropped in there if you like this type of stuff, this espionage, James Bond type stuff, all right?

00:07:16.560 But anyway, without further ado, guys, we're going to go ahead and break down an episode from this show called Declassified, okay?

00:07:21.820 And this show's pretty lit.

00:07:23.720 It's modern, right?

00:07:24.900 As you guys know, it's not like older, like the FBI file stuff that I typically react to, which I still do enjoy.

00:07:29.800 This stuff is newer.

00:07:30.840 I think it's from like 2020, 2021, and 2022.

00:07:34.760 And, yeah, we're going to break down this documentary.

00:07:36.960 It's really good stuff. 0.87

00:07:38.240 Without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and take my ugly mug off the screen with my crappy voice.

00:07:42.420 I want to play this bad boy. 0.92

00:07:43.300 Let's get into it.

00:07:43.820 This is a story about the highest-ranking CIA agent ever to be convicted of espionage.

00:07:49.740 But clearly, this is a story about betrayal, betrayal of a man against his country and a betrayal of a father against his son.

00:07:59.220 He would sacrifice his country.

00:08:01.660 He would sacrifice his children for the money, for the lifestyle he wanted. 1.00

00:08:06.180 And he's a traitor. 0.91

00:08:07.060 I mean, you know, in our line of work, it doesn't really get much worse than that. 0.93

00:08:13.820 Now, you guys are probably wondering, like, traitor, what do you mean by this?

00:08:16.900 Guys, you know, as a former government employee, I could tell you guys, I had a top-secret security clearance myself.

00:08:23.460 And you take an oath, man.

00:08:25.680 Like, you take an oath that you're going to uphold the Constitution of the United States against enemies, both foreign and domestic.

00:08:34.500 And right here, guys, this is what I tell you guys all the time about treachery.

00:08:37.820 This is the highest level of treachery.

00:08:39.340 There's a reason why spies get pretty stiff sentences in the United States.

00:08:44.060 And, yeah, and the reason why it's so bad, guys, it's not just about selling secrets, okay?

00:08:48.660 I know you guys are probably like, well, is it that bad?

00:08:50.760 You're just, like, telling them about some, I don't know, maybe satellites in the sky or whatever.

00:08:54.320 The reason why it's so bad is 9 out of 10 times when you sell secrets to foreign governments or foreign agents of foreign governments,

00:09:01.480 what happens is you're compromising human sources and you're also compromising other operations, other intelligence operatives,

00:09:09.020 whether they work for the CIA, DIA, any other intelligence agency.

00:09:12.940 So you compromise other Americans, guys.

00:09:15.380 You compromise military situations.

00:09:17.620 You compromise strategy.

00:09:20.060 So anytime you compromise this stuff, it's not just about selling secrets. 0.92

00:09:23.460 It's about getting people killed, man.

00:09:25.620 So this is why this stuff is taken so seriously.

00:09:28.560 And I know people, you know, distrust the government and everything else like that.

00:09:32.040 And I totally get it as a former government employee.

00:09:33.680 I get it.

00:09:34.020 You know, there's a bunch of BS that the government puts out there.

00:09:37.600 But when it comes to protecting our service members, when it comes to protecting innocent American lives,

00:09:42.760 when it comes to protecting, you know, government employees that might not necessarily even be involved in this stuff, right?

00:09:48.280 Most government employees, guys, don't have a clearance, to be honest with y'all.

00:09:50.980 You know what I mean?

00:09:51.360 They barely have a secret, if that.

00:09:53.240 So it's about protecting these people, right?

00:09:56.120 And of protecting the American public from foreign threats.

00:10:00.260 So it is what it is.

00:10:02.140 I love my country.

00:10:03.360 You know what I mean? 0.98

00:10:03.860 People talk crap about the United States all the time. 0.98

00:10:06.160 But, hey, man, it is what it is. 0.99

00:10:09.260 This is the best country in the world, guys.

00:10:10.520 And it's coming from a guy that had immigrant parents.

00:10:12.760 So they used to remind me all the time how great this country is.

00:10:15.440 So I took that oath personally.

00:10:17.060 It's still due to this day.

00:10:19.460 And, yeah, definitely enjoy sharing this type of content with y'all.

00:10:23.300 Why would a good CIA officer become a traitor? 0.99

00:10:27.020 The guy is so arrogant and psychopathic. 1.00

00:10:30.420 It's just unbelievable. 1.00

00:10:32.180 He committed espionage on behalf of a hostile country.

00:10:35.760 He used people like poker chips.

00:10:37.880 I don't know how you do that if you have a conscience.

00:10:40.180 I mean, his family is destroyed by what he did.

00:10:44.240 As a former FBI agent and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

00:10:52.380 There's no doubt in Washington tonight.

00:10:53.920 Skip that intro.

00:10:54.820 That this is an intelligence disaster.

00:10:57.380 Here's ABC's Bob Zellnick.

00:10:58.840 CIA director James Woolsey faced an audience of congressmen anxious to know why it took nine years to figure out that Alder James was working for the KGB.

00:11:07.360 Oh, boy.

00:11:08.240 So, yeah, let's go ahead and cover this guy as well.

00:11:12.660 So, Aldridge Ames, guys, all right, is probably – this is one of the worst compromises of U.S. intelligence, okay?

00:11:25.040 So, Aldridge Hazen Rick Ames, born May 26, 1941, as a former CIA officer turned KGB double agent who was convicted of espionage in 1994, serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in the federal correctional institution in Tarrant, Indiana.

00:11:40.100 Ames was a 31-year CIA counterintelligence officer who committed espionage against the U.S. by spying for the Soviet Union and Russia.

00:11:46.740 Ames was known to have compromised a more highly classified CIA assistant than any other officer until Robert Hansen was arrested seven years later in 2001.

00:11:54.700 As you guys know, I did a whole breakdown on Robert Hansen.

00:11:57.100 Y'all already know this was an FBI agent that was head of the Russian counterintelligence section at the Bureau.

00:12:03.900 And he ended up getting arrested as well for espionage.

00:12:07.760 So, we got two CIA operatives and one FBI agent that committed treason against their country.

00:12:13.920 If you guys want, go back and check my Fed episode where I break this case down as well.

00:12:17.560 This one was a very interesting one.

00:12:18.700 But, yeah, Audra James, this obviously was, I would say, the stimuli to begin the probe against basically U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officers who have access to compromising information that could put us in a bad spot against an adversary like Russia who is highly capable and have good spies of their own.

00:12:43.220 They have a strong military. And I know a lot of people hate Putin right now, but, you know, there's no doubt that Russia is a world superpower, which is why any time we're compromised by Russia, it's a big deal and they make it a spectacle.

00:12:55.180 So, you got the CIA guy, Woosley, over here getting answered, answering questions to a bunch of dudes over in Washington, D.C. under oath.

00:13:04.720 And no guy ever wants to be there answering questions like that, that it took nine years to catch this guy.

00:13:09.060 But intelligence investigations guys are long term. They're difficult to do.

00:13:12.620 And, you know, these guys are intelligent. They know what they're doing.

00:13:15.900 They don't want to necessarily get caught. So they cover the tracks.

00:13:18.020 You're going to see that the Nicholson's were no different.

00:13:22.500 Intelligence sources say Ames had told the KGB about as many as 10 Russians who were working for the CIA.

00:13:29.420 And guaranteed all those guys definitely got.

00:13:31.800 And the Ames case broke open, that was a watershed event inside CIA where we had a high ranking case officer working for an extended period of time for the Russians inside of the building.

00:13:46.080 For the agency, that triggered a introspective moment on how did this happen?

00:13:54.980 For many years, we didn't believe it was possible.

00:13:58.100 That myth was shattered.

00:13:59.220 I felt a lot of anger because I knew what older James mostly had access to.

00:14:06.200 OK, now I just want to just so I'm going to give you guys these guys the title so you kind of understand where they're coming from.

00:14:12.320 So this guy, Ed Curran, assistant special agent in charge, FBI retired, chief of counter espionage, CIA retired.

00:14:18.040 So this guy. So, guys, any type of counter espionage, spy type cases, et cetera, is always going to be investigated by the FBI.

00:14:25.680 The CIA does not arrest their own 99 percent of the time.

00:14:28.920 And only time they do, guys, is when they deal with their office of inspector general, which I'll show you guys that real quick.

00:14:36.500 OK, and I don't think they do criminal investigations, to be honest with y'all.

00:14:41.020 Office of inspector in general, CIA.

00:14:42.780 This is who they are. Right.

00:14:43.760 So these guys, right, they do audits, inspections, investigations.

00:14:51.380 Right. They do criminal cases as well.

00:14:54.360 Right. But it's not going to be.

00:14:56.360 How do I say this?

00:14:58.200 Hold on. My bad. Sorry, guys.

00:14:59.360 Let me share a screen with y'all here.

00:15:01.680 I don't know why it's not sharing.

00:15:03.140 Oh, I know why.

00:15:04.740 Minimize this.

00:15:06.080 Hold on one second.

00:15:07.160 Sorry about that, guys.

00:15:08.480 You still don't see it.

00:15:09.560 All right. Let me hit stop screen.

00:15:11.700 And now is that?

00:15:13.760 Share my bad dogs.

00:15:16.840 We ready to go now.

00:15:17.940 All right.

00:15:18.420 So this is it right here.

00:15:20.940 CIA Office of Inspector General.

00:15:23.220 And within the U.S. government, guys, you're always going to have OIGs.

00:15:25.820 Right. The Department of Justice has Office of Inspector General.

00:15:28.920 Department of Homeland Security had OIG, et cetera.

00:15:30.920 These guys do criminal cases internally.

00:15:34.060 OK, now there's the OIG do investigations of their employees.

00:15:38.020 Of course.

00:15:38.540 However, when it comes to espionage in cases that are like higher level like that, where

00:15:42.760 it's like serious felonies, the FBI is going to step in.

00:15:46.040 OK, so that's what OIG does.

00:15:50.380 All right.

00:15:50.680 Within the CIA.

00:15:51.320 But as far as this guy goes, Ed Karan, the FBI and the CIA, the CIA doesn't do do criminal

00:16:01.520 investigations.

00:16:01.960 Right.

00:16:02.440 You've got the Office of Inspector General, which is another agency above.

00:16:05.520 Right.

00:16:06.320 The CIA.

00:16:07.340 But as far as like criminal investigations being done, like at a high level, it's almost

00:16:11.620 always going to be the FBI when it comes to espionage, terrorism, counterintelligence,

00:16:15.620 et cetera, because that is one of their mandates.

00:16:17.860 That's one of their top three programmatic areas.

00:16:19.680 Actually, terrorism is number one.

00:16:21.660 Right.

00:16:22.040 As you guys know.

00:16:22.720 And then counter espionage.

00:16:24.400 And then and then third is political corruption.

00:16:27.920 Those are the three main programmatic areas for the FBI.

00:16:30.300 And this is at least back since 2020 when I was an agent myself for Homeland Security, because

00:16:34.980 I have a good friend of mine that's actually an FBI agent.

00:16:36.960 Really good dude.

00:16:39.300 We work together on some organized crime stuff with Latin Kings. 1.00

00:16:42.700 But last I remember, those are the three types of investigations they focus on the most.

00:16:46.820 So if there's going to be a spy, a terrorist attack or public public corruption, you know,

00:16:52.700 we're talking about dirty mayors or whatever it may be.

00:16:54.520 The FBI is going to be all over it.

00:16:56.520 I know there are eight to 10 agents that were executed.

00:17:00.060 Oh, and this guy's an assistant special agent in charge.

00:17:01.960 My bad.

00:17:02.240 I forgot to mention this.

00:17:02.980 So this guy, guys, is probably a third level supervisor, essentially.

00:17:07.220 So you got special agent, right?

00:17:08.840 Ranked number one.

00:17:09.700 Then above him, you got something called the SSA or supervisory special agent.

00:17:13.140 Then above him, you got something called an assistant special agent in charge.

00:17:16.260 So the agent, they run the cases.

00:17:18.620 They do their own investigations.

00:17:19.660 They're out there talking to informants, willing and dealing, write reports, presenting

00:17:22.880 cases of prosecution.

00:17:24.040 The supervisor is the first line supervisor.

00:17:25.760 He's signing off on reports.

00:17:27.160 He's pushing paperwork up to management so they can get signed.

00:17:29.660 They can get funding, et cetera.

00:17:31.100 He typically manages somewhere between five to 10 agents in a group or the FBI calls

00:17:35.940 it a squad.

00:17:36.700 Homeland security, we used to call it groups, but it's the same thing basically, right?

00:17:40.200 Then on top of that first line supervisor, aka an SSA, you got the assistant special agent

00:17:45.160 in charge.

00:17:45.820 Now he manages three to five different groups.

00:17:48.940 So he's overseeing five to 10 supervisors who then in turn supervise five to 10 agents.

00:17:54.340 So this guy was pretty high ranking within the Bureau to be what we call an ASAC, assistant

00:18:01.400 special agent in charge.

00:18:02.420 And then on top of him, some agencies, I know Homeland Security that has this, you have a

00:18:07.100 deputy special agent in charge, aka known as a DSAC, pause.

00:18:10.720 And then over him is the SAC, right?

00:18:13.880 The FBI calls it SACs.

00:18:15.580 We call them SACs, Homeland Security, which is the special agent in charge.

00:18:19.300 And he's in charge of like an entire region.

00:18:21.660 Okay, like a major city, there'll be a SAC that sits in, you know, Miami, then another

00:18:26.620 SAC in New York, et cetera.

00:18:27.720 If it's really big, they'll have more than one SAC.

00:18:29.600 Like New York City field office for FBI, they got multiple special agents in charge,

00:18:33.420 right?

00:18:33.740 Which that guy is easily overseeing 100 plus agents.

00:18:38.200 All right.

00:18:38.620 So that's typically how it goes, guys.

00:18:40.320 That's kind of the breakdown of both, not just the FBI, but other agencies have a very

00:18:45.560 similar structure.

00:18:46.300 Homeland Security, we had an identical structure essentially to FBI.

00:18:48.520 DEA is very similar, ATF, et cetera.

00:18:52.100 The only difference is that since the FBI is the largest criminal investigative agency

00:18:58.280 in the United States, they're a bit bigger.

00:19:00.520 So they have more, I guess, ranks and agents, but the general structure is typically the same.

00:19:07.740 And then the second largest agency is actually my former agency, Homeland Security Investigations.

00:19:11.280 So we have a similar structure to them as well.

00:19:13.280 So, all right, let's get back into it here.

00:19:14.960 Sorry, my voice is crappy, guys.

00:19:18.460 Hopefully, I'll be back to normal tomorrow.

00:19:20.540 As a result of information, one of those was one I was directly involved with.

00:19:26.940 There was a great deal of anger in the Senate intelligence community.

00:19:30.240 Anger at who?

00:19:31.060 CIA.

00:19:31.920 They wanted to find him themselves over a long period of time before they brought it to the

00:19:35.800 FBI.

00:19:36.520 But finally, when they did turn it over to us, he had already done most of the damage.

00:19:40.260 The Ames case is perhaps.

00:19:42.960 And the reality is they can't do it themselves.

00:19:44.800 Like, they probably wanted to identify him themselves because it's kind of embarrassing

00:19:47.700 to have another agency come in and arrest your guy.

00:19:49.680 But the CIA can't arrest their own.

00:19:51.920 They're not a criminal investigative agency.

00:19:53.620 We talked about this in detail, Andrew, as well.

00:19:55.180 And watch out to go back and watch that interview, guys, because we kind of talk about the differences

00:19:58.640 between law enforcement and intelligence.

00:20:00.580 The CIA can't arrest their own.

00:20:02.000 If anything, the most they could do is what I showed y'all with the Office of Inspector General.

00:20:05.500 But something like this, espionage, working with a foreign government, et cetera, this

00:20:09.240 is beyond the capabilities of the Office of Inspector General.

00:20:11.800 They're typically coming in like, oh, you lied on this application.

00:20:16.120 Oh, you did this.

00:20:17.200 You beat your wife. 0.90

00:20:18.120 Like some BS typically is when Office of Inspector General comes in.

00:20:21.640 When the Bureau comes in, typically it's going to be more serious.

00:20:27.200 And again, you guys got to remember, what did I tell y'all before?

00:20:29.960 You got terrorism, counterintelligence, right?

00:20:33.220 And then the third programmatic area is public corruption.

00:20:35.680 As a CIA officer, you are considered a public official, which falls under what?

00:20:40.920 Political corruption.

00:20:41.680 So, of course, the FBI is going to be all over this because not only is it counterintelligence,

00:20:44.580 but it's also public corruption as well.

00:20:48.360 The most graphic and vivid example of the need to make structural changes in the operation

00:20:55.220 of our intelligence community.

00:20:57.040 When Alder James was arrested, we knew he did significant damage to the intelligence community.

00:21:01.720 In addition to that, we had other cases that Alder James was not involved in that went bad.

00:21:08.460 You assume at that point that somebody else is trying to steal secret information and give

00:21:12.940 it to the Russians.

00:21:14.620 And this is not a one-off event.

00:21:16.800 And we've got to make sure that if there's any more, we have to find them.

00:21:19.840 As soon as Ames was brought to justice, I ordered a comprehensive re-examination and both

00:21:24.520 internal and external studies of our counterintelligence operation.

00:21:28.140 When the president is over here talking about it, then you know it's a big deal, man.

00:21:32.760 Boom, mocha! 0.99

00:21:33.920 Then y'all know it's a big deal.

00:21:36.120 Because you guys got to remember, the president gets an intelligence briefing every day from

00:21:40.880 all the intelligence communities.

00:21:42.320 So when something like this happens, it comes across his desk.

00:21:44.600 It directly affects his ability to preside over the country.

00:21:49.560 One more time for that.

00:21:50.320 Like, this is the issue whenever I really want y'all to understand the gravity of this.

00:21:57.660 When you're the president of the United States, right?

00:22:00.000 You're getting an intelligence briefing almost every day from all the intelligence agencies,

00:22:03.520 CIA, NSA, DIA, all the different.

00:22:05.820 And there's like 31 intelligence agencies in the United States, okay?

00:22:07.940 All working in different parts, right?

00:22:10.420 Some do satellites, some do human information, blah, blah, blah, right?

00:22:12.980 As the president, you're making geopolitical decisions every single day that's obviously

00:22:21.100 going to affect the United States and relations with other countries.

00:22:25.300 So when you know that you've been compromised, guess what happens?

00:22:29.780 You're negotiating power.

00:22:31.480 Your ability to have leverage goes out the window.

00:22:34.640 And Russia is one of the worst countries to not have leverage against when you're making

00:22:38.600 very delicate decisions with a country that is considered a hostile, right?

00:22:47.200 We have to be nice and polite with them in person.

00:22:49.160 Ha, ha, ha.

00:22:49.680 I'm sure you guys have seen Obama laughing, we're pulling on many occasions, et cetera.

00:22:53.540 But the reality is they both hate each other.

00:22:56.780 So when something like this happens, guys, the Audra Games case, what happened was it compromised

00:23:03.180 because Bill Clinton's ability to have power and leverage over Russia, which directly affects

00:23:09.700 his ability to make decisions.

00:23:11.560 And it has longstanding ramifications for any type of decision he makes in that part of

00:23:16.180 the world because Russia has a lot of allies.

00:23:18.040 So he might not necessarily be able to do things that he wanted to do before because intelligence

00:23:22.180 is compromised, okay?

00:23:24.200 So, and this has been going on between the United States and Russia for years, guys.

00:23:27.540 We catch one of their spies, they catch one of ours.

00:23:29.340 We do a trade, all said and done.

00:23:31.280 That's why the Brittany Griner trade was such a bad move because you basically had, we 1.00

00:23:35.780 had, you know, uh, what's his name?

00:23:38.860 Uh, my God, I forgot his name.

00:23:41.380 This is L for me. 0.93

00:23:42.260 I'm going to give myself a stupid, I'm going to pull his name, but basically the Lord of 0.98

00:23:45.940 War or the Merchant of Death, right? 0.99

00:23:48.540 Um, we had him and we could have traded him for a spy, but we didn't because we're dumb 0.93

00:23:53.480 and we decided to be politically correct and get a WNBA player. 1.00

00:23:56.500 Um, hold on, Merchant of Death.

00:23:58.760 I already know y'all are probably frying me in the chat.

00:24:00.820 Sorry, guys.

00:24:01.500 I haven't really slept in a long day.

00:24:05.220 Uh, Victor about, oh my God.

00:24:06.720 Sorry guys.

00:24:07.620 But yeah.

00:24:08.420 So when you have someone like that, that you can trade and you go and get a WNBA player, 1.00

00:24:13.000 that's why it was such a big fucking L. 0.97

00:24:14.840 You know what I mean? 0.97

00:24:15.200 Like me coming as a former law enforcement guy that knows the background between Russia

00:24:21.800 and United States and how we've been playing this dance with them for the better part of

00:24:25.120 damn near 50, 60 years.

00:24:26.460 Um, anytime you have one of theirs, you're supposed to trade to get one of your own back. 0.99

00:24:30.840 And we ended up not doing that. 1.00

00:24:31.920 We didn't get that Marine home, which is, you know, absolutely stupid. 1.00

00:24:34.820 That's the Biden administration. 0.99

00:24:36.660 Uh, but let's get back into it.

00:24:37.720 But I just wanted to let y'all know that gravity of when these things break, what happens?

00:24:41.100 The president is talking about it guys.

00:24:45.240 As a result, a presidential decision directive was issued that basically said, take a person

00:24:50.920 with experience and seniority, send them over to the CIA.

00:24:54.920 He's still FBI, but he'll.

00:24:56.860 There you go.

00:24:57.480 Bam.

00:24:57.700 So the chief of CIA's counterintelligence center, uh, counterespionage group will be

00:25:01.920 permanently staffed by a senior executive from the FBI.

00:25:04.640 Holy.

00:25:08.260 And the reason for that guys, right.

00:25:10.440 They're trying to be polite.

00:25:11.600 It's because the CIA doesn't have law enforcement capabilities.

00:25:14.340 So they're going to put a liaison from the FBI to kind of oversee them and make sure if 0.97

00:25:18.600 any of y'all do anything stupid when it comes to counterintelligence, we're going to open 0.93

00:25:22.260 a case on y'all immediately and get this thing going. 0.98

00:25:24.340 Because remember, Ames had been selling secrets for nine years.

00:25:27.040 Imagine how much classified info he gave to his Russian handlers over at the KGB that

00:25:32.500 they were able to directly move back to Moscow, which would direct, which would hurt, right.

00:25:38.220 Our political leaders ability to make decisions for the betterment of the United States.

00:25:42.540 So guys, espionage has longstanding effects, which directly impact the country's national

00:25:47.800 security.

00:25:48.740 I know you guys say, Oh, but maybe blah, blah, blah.

00:25:51.320 You know, the guy don't trust the government, whatever.

00:25:52.760 I understand that you have a total right to distrust the government.

00:25:56.180 But when you got people working for the government, selling secrets to hostile enemies like Russia

00:26:01.840 and China, this is a big deal, guys.

00:26:04.840 This is a very big deal.

00:26:06.260 Run their counterespionage group that's responsible for uncovering spies.

00:26:12.240 I got a call when I was in Los Angeles.

00:26:17.900 We want you to come back and run this group.

00:26:19.900 When I went over to the counterespionage group, I asked him if I could bring an assistant with me, somebody from the FBI, and John I had worked with previously in Los Angeles.

00:26:31.240 This opportunity to be the first FBI agents really inserted in almost light cover within the CIA was what I call a singular opportunity.

00:26:41.900 I tend to value.

00:26:42.680 So as you guys can see, so you had the assistant special agent in charge overseeing this group, and now you have a supervisory special agent underneath him.

00:26:49.740 So they're putting, they're not just putting regular agents over there, they're putting higher levels of bureau agents over there at the CIA, which tells you guys the seriousness of this, of how they're really trying to combat any moles in the CIA after the Ames arrest, which sets the stage for this case that we're going to cover today.

00:27:07.780 I said to Ed, I'll come, and I've never regretted it.

00:27:13.340 Most of the people in the CIA did not know I was there looking for a spot.

00:27:18.060 Did you have a CIA badge or an FBI?

00:27:20.140 A CIA badge.

00:27:21.480 So they didn't know you were from the FBI?

00:27:23.580 Within the first week, everybody in that building knew I was from the FBI.

00:27:27.780 Yeah, of course.

00:27:30.600 Nice job, my friend. Nice try.

00:27:32.120 But, you know, people in the government talk, you're over there with the CIA.

00:27:35.680 The CIA hires some very bright people.

00:27:38.540 So, of course, they're going to know that you're a bureau guy from the way that you speak, the way that you operate, the way that you convey yourself.

00:27:44.640 It's very obvious when you meet a law enforcement guy, let alone an FBI agent.

00:27:49.400 I'll tell you guys this.

00:27:50.680 Put me in front of an FBI agent.

00:27:51.900 I'll be able to tell you right away if he's a bureau agent.

00:27:53.600 They have certain mannerisms.

00:27:54.880 They have certain ways of speaking that it's just very obvious, okay?

00:28:00.960 You have to be in front of one, and I could point them out immediately.

00:28:04.340 But, yeah, bureau agents, they all speak, look, behave the same, have a very similar look.

00:28:11.580 Yeah.

00:28:13.720 But I'm not surprised that the CIA knew that he was an FBI guy immediately.

00:28:17.780 It's hilarious.

00:28:18.500 Because intelligence, like I told you before, is much different than law enforcement.

00:28:21.140 We think differently.

00:28:21.920 We think very differently.

00:28:24.060 They didn't particularly care for me being here, but they definitely knew who I was.

00:28:28.260 Inside the CIA headquarters building, people were whining and bitching about all kinds of things, and the FBI this and that.

00:28:35.820 The FBI has a job to do, just like we do.

00:28:38.140 We clearly had a serious problem.

00:28:39.740 And there's been a rift between the FBI and the CIA for a very long time, guys, and the reason for that is because they're both intelligence agencies.

00:28:49.120 The only difference is that the FBI is a law enforcement agency as well as an intelligence agency.

00:28:53.800 CIA handles intelligence abroad, overseas, while the FBI handles intelligence domestically.

00:28:59.760 And the CIA is supposed to refer anything to the FBI that touches domestic and or might have some type of terrorism nexus that law enforcement could thwart right away.

00:29:07.780 And the FBI is the lead on that.

00:29:09.740 That is why they've always had these longest standing issues.

00:29:12.380 And if you guys watch our 9-11 breakdown, the CIA, excuse me, the FBI blamed the CIA for not giving them information ahead of time where they had identified hijackers that were actually in the United States.

00:29:25.920 So this has been a longstanding issue between agencies, which is kind of funny for me as a former Homeland guy, because I'm not in the middle of this BS.

00:29:34.380 I told you all before, classified stuff is useless.

00:29:36.140 Now, when I get over there, I get all my briefings, and I learned that I had over 300 cases in the CIA where CIA employees had failed its counterintelligence polygraph.

00:29:50.160 That means is that you had 300 potential spies in the CIA that had never been resolved.

00:29:55.680 At the time, if you fail a CIA polygraph, nothing ever happens to you.

00:29:59.440 Alder James had failed the polygraph several times, and nothing was done.

00:30:03.160 When I came in, I put a stop to that.

00:30:06.640 Now, we know that polygraphs are typically BS guys, but they do help indicate deception when lies are being told.

00:30:12.400 And for some of you guys that are wondering, this is also known as a lie detector test.

00:30:15.420 It doesn't necessarily detect if you're lying.

00:30:17.040 It detects bodily functions, changes, and fluctuations when being asked questions.

00:30:22.180 And what they do is they give you base questions.

00:30:23.940 Hey, what's your name?

00:30:24.400 Where are you from?

00:30:25.000 They get a baseline of what your bodily functions are like, right?

00:30:30.100 Your demeanor, when you tell the truth.

00:30:31.800 Then they start pressing you about questions that might get you to lie.

00:30:36.700 And then they see how your body reacts to those.

00:30:39.520 And then that's when they make a, and I'm saying this, we're air quotes here, determination that you might be displaying deceptive trait, deceptive practices or behaviors, right?

00:30:50.320 And then they can go ahead and fail you or give you inconclusive or whatever.

00:30:53.040 But the point I'm trying to make is that it's extremely subjective based on the polygrapher.

00:30:56.940 And there's been many people that beat polygraph tests.

00:30:59.440 It's just another tool in the toolkit for them to kind of know where to pry and ask questions.

00:31:04.200 I had my own polygraph examiner.

00:31:06.020 We all did our own test and we brought the individual in and basically said, you're going to resolve this or you're not going anywhere.

00:31:13.040 We had to resolve it one by one.

00:31:15.940 And just so you guys know, for a polygraph, you get a polygraph every five years when you have a top secret clearance.

00:31:21.380 It's called your re-up.

00:31:22.960 So what he means by all these, all these guys got failed their polygraphs.

00:31:26.580 He doesn't mean their initial polygraph to get the job.

00:31:28.700 They mean during the course of their career, you've been in a CIA, let's say you've been in CIA for 20 years.

00:31:33.760 You're going to probably go through four to five different polygraphs, maybe even more depending on your security clearance.

00:31:39.220 If you have an SCI, you might do it damn near every three years.

00:31:41.400 So that's what he means when he says, oh, we have to do their polygraphs because a lot of people might get confused.

00:31:49.360 Like, wait, how did they get the job if they fail the first time?

00:31:51.500 No, they passed the first one to get the job.

00:31:53.780 After they get the job, they have to keep going through re-ups.

00:31:55.880 And it's very difficult to fire a government employee.

00:31:58.180 So a lot of times I could see why CIA people and or government people might not necessarily lose their job for failing a polygraph for getting an inconclusive.

00:32:07.380 But this guy came in and put an end to that.

00:32:10.600 Very unpopular.

00:32:14.300 You had this pool of unresolved polygraphs.

00:32:16.980 So you want to push and get those resolved as quickly as possible.

00:32:20.420 When you start from 300, it takes a long time to get down to half a dozen.

00:32:26.000 Now, unfortunately, a lot of the reasons why people were having trouble with the polygraph wasn't because they were a spy.

00:32:31.420 It's that they've been playing loose with the rules when they're out there in the field.

00:32:35.420 But it's not espionage.

00:32:36.580 Are you a spy?

00:32:37.460 That's all I'm interested in.

00:32:38.580 I'm not care if you didn't pay your income tax.

00:32:41.100 In 98% of the cases we were able to resolve.

00:32:44.280 They had nothing to do with espionage.

00:32:45.700 But then in the summer of 1996, out of the herd, one individual particularly emerges.

00:32:52.980 That was James Harold Nicholson.

00:32:55.460 Here we go.

00:32:57.680 And that's how they figured him out.

00:33:00.820 And here we go.

00:33:02.880 And that's how they figured him out because of failed polygraphs.

00:33:09.100 Nicholson had failed a polygraph.

00:33:11.020 Plus he was assigned to various areas where cases went bad.

00:33:13.920 So he was a suspect, a strong suspect at that time.

00:33:18.480 Jim Nicholson was an instructor at the CIA's training facility, the farm.

00:33:23.920 He was one of the instructors to train spies.

00:33:26.060 So he knew the identity of every agent that we were going to send overseas.

00:33:30.480 And he could.

00:33:31.220 Oh, man. 1.00

00:33:32.360 Oh, shit. 1.00

00:33:33.060 Oh, shit. 1.00

00:33:33.820 Provided this information to the Russians. 1.00

00:33:36.140 And that's what concerned us the most.

00:33:38.060 When you expose a spy who's lurking in a hostile country that is not allied with us, for them, that's a death sentence.

00:33:45.400 You're accused, you're tortured, and you're murdered.

00:33:47.920 His career, his experience, it's just devastating.

00:33:51.840 Even worse than Ames.

00:33:53.340 I can't believe the potential damage he could have done.

00:33:56.140 We had cases that older James was not involved in that went bad.

00:34:09.520 You assume at that point that somebody else is trying to steal secret information and give it to the Russians.

00:34:16.220 This is not a one-off event.

00:34:18.300 If there's any more, we have to find them.

00:34:20.240 In the summer of 1996, yeah.

00:34:21.820 So you got a guy with a bad poly, and you find out that Eldrick Ames, right, you know all the information he gave over, and some of the things that they were compromised in wasn't necessarily Ames' information.

00:34:35.240 So you can only imagine, right, what's going through their minds, like, do we have another spy?

00:34:40.340 And remember, guys, this is their early 90s.

00:34:42.100 This is before Robert Hansen.

00:34:43.220 This is before any big CIA operatives had been arrested prior to Ames.

00:34:46.980 So for them, this is all new.

00:34:48.400 And they're like, yo, dude, we got to catch this other guy immediately, because this information that's being compromised didn't come from Ames.

00:34:54.100 We know what he gave already.

00:34:55.260 So you can only imagine the craziness in their head.

00:35:01.220 Because the longer you wait, the more American lives that can be lost.

00:35:05.700 The FBI team had already whittled down their cast of possible candidates, and one of those was Jim Nicholson.

00:35:12.680 Jim Nicholson was working as a single dad, and had custody of his three children.

00:35:20.640 For Jim, I think the divorce clearly precipitated some financial strains that weren't there before.

00:35:26.540 Now being a single father, having to pay alimony, all those sort of pressures were coming to bear, together with his expensive tastes, you know, tailored suits as opposed to off the rack.

00:35:35.220 His lifestyle demanded more money than you could make as a case officer, and it looked like he might be interested in making more money.

00:35:43.980 It's one thing to go after a spy who may have only had one course in counterintelligence.

00:35:48.080 It's another thing to know you're going up with the senior varsity.

00:35:51.720 He was an extremely well-trained spy with a great deal of previous experience.

00:35:56.400 We all knew that if we make one mistake with this guy, he's gone.

00:35:59.940 So with that information in hand, certain opportunities came up.

00:36:04.320 One of them was Jim's announced vacation to Singapore.

00:36:09.120 So the discussion then came.

00:36:10.560 And you guys are probably wondering, what's the CIA's case officer salary?

00:36:13.500 It's right around $100,000 a year, guys, which back then, $100,000 in 1995 is the equivalent.

00:36:25.680 It is the equivalent of purchasing power to about $200,000 today.

00:36:29.940 So, hey, he was doing all right.

00:36:32.360 Yeah, $100,000.

00:36:33.200 Oh, excuse me.

00:36:35.840 Oh, my bad.

00:36:36.660 Let me.

00:36:37.200 Here, I'll find a number for you in a second.

00:36:38.480 My bad.

00:36:38.820 Let me.

00:36:39.140 I'll get it to y'all.

00:36:40.180 Came down with Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet.

00:36:43.220 Do we let him go?

00:36:44.420 Don't we let him go?

00:36:45.720 Decision was made by George Tenet that we would inform the Singaporean Intelligence Service.

00:36:50.520 And Jim Nicholson would go to Singapore.

00:36:54.380 When he got off the plane in Singapore, he's under surveillance.

00:36:56.820 And he almost immediately begins what we call dry cleaning.

00:37:03.700 Surveillance detection runs designed to pick up anybody trying to surveil or follow you.

00:37:09.720 That's where.

00:37:10.080 And they learned this from, obviously, their own school.

00:37:13.000 And we call them a heat run, but same thing.

00:37:14.540 The term dry cleaning comes from you're stripping or cleansing yourself of any of these unwanted attachments.

00:37:21.460 Going down a set of stairs and then immediately turning around and going back up.

00:37:25.260 So if anyone's following you, you're likely to run right into them.

00:37:28.600 Looking in the pane glass windows of large department stores.

00:37:31.980 He's not looking at what's behind the glass.

00:37:33.760 He's looking at the reflections in the glass.

00:37:35.580 But going around town dry cleaning, doing surveillance detection runs is not what one usually does on a vacation.

00:37:44.400 All right, guys.

00:37:45.220 So it's roughly somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000 back then in the mid-90s.

00:37:49.540 $100,000 of today.

00:37:51.580 But you're still only suspecting him because you don't have that last link.

00:37:55.180 You haven't made your case yet.

00:37:56.520 But on the third day of surveillance, the proverbial black limo pulls up to the curb.

00:38:03.380 The door opens up and Jim hops in.

00:38:08.440 Surveillance team looks down to the license plate.

00:38:11.700 Russian embassy.

00:38:12.780 Once he went in that embassy, he was a bad guy.

00:38:18.220 There was no suspect anymore.

00:38:19.660 He is the subject of an espionage investigation.

00:38:22.560 Now you focus all your attention on building a case against him.

00:38:27.540 So now I know you guys are probably wondering, well, you know, Myron, hold on.

00:38:30.180 He just went into a Russian embassy.

00:38:31.420 How's that against the law?

00:38:32.620 The reason why it's against the law, guys, because when you have a clearance to the same level, this guy with the background that he has, with the position that he has, the title he has, you need to declare anytime you go into a foreign embassy.

00:38:44.900 Okay.

00:38:45.260 So that is why they knew right away that this is probably their guy from an espionage standpoint, and he's not authorized to be there, especially in the embassy of a hostile country like Russia.

00:38:56.320 Well, after identifying Jim in Singapore as our spy, the next challenge was where do we position him so that he can do the least amount of damage?

00:39:03.680 So after discussion, this is actually a very good tactic that the government employs anytime they have someone who they suspect of FBI does all the time of being involved in espionage or selling secrets or whatever.

00:39:17.620 They immediately move him into somewhere where they feel like they're getting a promotion.

00:39:22.640 Hell, they might even get paid more, right?

00:39:24.180 So that doesn't trigger any alarms, but they lose a significant amount of access.

00:39:30.720 They lose reach, and they're no longer put in a situation where they can continue to compromise intelligence.

00:39:38.500 Now, of course, being a spy, they're going to try.

00:39:41.120 But what this does is it allows them to protect the security of the investigation while simultaneously putting the suspect in a location where they can't necessarily compromise classified information to the same degree.

00:39:52.800 Of course, they're going to try.

00:39:54.240 But typically, at this point, the FBI wants to be there and witness it when they try.

00:39:58.660 See a difference?

00:40:00.020 So that they can gather evidence.

00:40:02.380 The decision was made to put him as a branch chief in the counterterrorism center.

00:40:05.680 Given the environment at the time, you know, this pre-9-11, that would be the place in which we could most effectively contain additional damage that he might do.

00:40:16.500 You don't demote him because then he's wondering what's going on here.

00:40:18.760 But you promote him, you're letting him know he can go do what he wants because nobody's watching me.

00:40:24.840 So it was finally in June 1996 that Jim began...

00:40:27.420 And typically, they'll get promoted to, like, a supervisor, maybe one step higher than they were prior,

00:40:31.600 so they still have the illusion in their head that they have access, they're not in trouble, et cetera.

00:40:37.340 Because the last thing you want to do is trip one of these types of guys off because they'll cover their tracks immediately.

00:40:42.360 Again, his new duties as a branch chief.

00:40:44.120 They did the same thing to Robert Hansen as well when they were investigating him.

00:40:48.060 Encounter terrorism.

00:40:49.220 Now you have to collect the evidence and present it for an arrest warrant.

00:40:53.500 We had to monitor his activities when he's outside of Langley 24 hours a day.

00:40:58.040 That means every time he stepped foot outside his house, there had to be a surveillance owner.

00:41:01.800 Anytime he's in his house, we have to know what he's talking about, who he's talking to.

00:41:05.140 And then they had to know everything he's doing.

00:41:06.760 All right, so let me tell you something real quick about 24-hour surveillance that most people don't know unless you're on the job.

00:41:11.920 A 24-hour surveillance, guys, is literally one of the hardest things to coordinate when you're a case agent.

00:41:18.420 And the reason why is because you're watching the guy all day,

00:41:20.760 which means you automatically need at least three surveillance teams that are watching the guy for eight to ten hours at a time.

00:41:26.520 And on top of that,

00:41:28.040 you can't lose sight of him.

00:41:29.160 And I'm sure that they were probably also like bugging his phone and all this other stuff.

00:41:32.340 But 24-7 surveillance is extremely labor intensive.

00:41:37.980 So for them to put him under that type of surveillance, right?

00:41:40.740 Because remember, he's just living his life.

00:41:42.000 He's not spying all the time, right?

00:41:44.520 Him spying might account for only maybe two to three minutes of his day, guys.

00:41:47.960 But the other 23 hours and 57 minutes, you got to be watching this guy.

00:41:52.380 Watch him when he goes on dates.

00:41:53.800 Watch him with the strange activity in his free time.

00:41:56.240 Watch him when he's with his kids.

00:41:57.280 When he's going to the gym.

00:41:58.440 It can be very labor intensive, guys.

00:42:00.940 Like these 24-7 surveillance is not as exciting as you guys think, especially when it's someone like this that's smart about how they move.

00:42:08.720 They're not necessarily committing a crime that you can see all over, you know, overtly.

00:42:12.960 And they're typically living a regular life.

00:42:15.980 It's not like a drug dealer where you're seeing them meet with a bunch of other, you know, drug dealers and addicts, et cetera.

00:42:22.300 This is a dude that might get a piece of information every now and then and decide, you know what?

00:42:26.380 Let me sell this.

00:42:26.940 I could probably make a bag, right?

00:42:28.420 And that transaction might happen in two seconds.

00:42:30.760 And you can't miss it.

00:42:31.600 So 24-7 surveillance is extremely difficult.

00:42:36.680 And that's coming from my experience of getting 24-7 surveillance teams on point.

00:42:40.440 Like it's not fun.

00:42:42.140 Then agents start complaining, bro, come on.

00:42:44.520 Do we really need 24-7?

00:42:46.040 Blah, blah, blah.

00:42:46.660 You're the case agent. 1.00

00:42:47.540 You feel like an asshole. 1.00

00:42:48.380 Like, oh, man, do we not? 1.00

00:42:50.080 You know, because you don't want to make the guys that you work with in your group feel bad.

00:42:52.860 Or sorry, you don't, you start to feel bad because you don't want them to hate you.

00:42:56.180 So there's a lot of politics that go behind the scenes, too, when you're the case agent on these types of things doing 24-7 surveillance.

00:43:04.700 We had to get a human source in his office so that we know every time he gets up from his desk, he walks out, our guy goes out with him.

00:43:12.000 We had to get somebody right next to him.

00:43:16.580 1996.

00:43:17.020 I get a cable in the field that says you're assigned to human resources.

00:43:22.620 It was something.

00:43:23.320 And guys, a cable in the field basically means like a notification of some type of electronic communication or whatever.

00:43:28.960 That's what the CIA calls it.

00:43:30.620 But that's difficult.

00:43:31.600 It is some kind of a message.

00:43:32.820 Just boil it down.

00:43:33.720 It's a message.

00:43:34.680 I didn't want to do.

00:43:35.760 I clearly thought I'd piss my division chief off.

00:43:39.120 But I processed out of the field job I was in overseas and then came back.

00:43:43.680 I did not want to be in human resources.

00:43:46.280 Because that's like a kiss of death for a case officer.

00:43:49.960 And as a case officer, guys, your job is to recruit human sources.

00:43:55.600 You're out there abroad.

00:43:56.580 You're making things happen, et cetera. 0.98

00:43:57.880 So for this guy, it's like, damn, I'm in trouble. 0.98

00:43:59.660 Why the hell did they send me to HR? 0.98

00:44:01.440 But you're going to see what they call them in for.

00:44:03.040 I think at my brand new desk in HR, one morning, I got a call from the front offices and the boss up there called up and said, don't tell anybody where you're going.

00:44:14.460 Speak to nobody.

00:44:15.700 Get up here in front of my desk right now.

00:44:18.260 I said, OK.

00:44:19.160 McGuire sat down.

00:44:22.740 The chief explained to him, we want to put you on a very special assignment.

00:44:25.960 But we're not going to tell you what it's about.

00:44:27.680 And you have to give me an answer, yes or no, right now.

00:44:30.880 And could you imagine?

00:44:32.440 Boom, bucka! 1.00

00:44:33.280 Give me an answer right now.

00:44:34.700 Well, I don't know what I'm doing.

00:44:35.760 It doesn't matter.

00:44:36.340 Give me an answer right now.

00:44:37.420 Boom, bucka! 1.00

00:44:38.160 If it's no, your career is over.

00:44:42.520 I didn't say that, but that wasn't implied.

00:44:45.320 There was a long pause where I didn't say anything and either did he.

00:44:49.060 The only variable that I had in the room was there was a man in there that I didn't recognize.

00:44:53.100 I said, can I ask one question?

00:44:54.920 He said, you can ask it.

00:44:56.140 I might not answer, but go ahead.

00:44:57.600 I said, who is this man?

00:44:58.740 Who is this?

00:44:59.280 Typical CIA response.

00:45:01.320 You can ask, but I might not answer.

00:45:03.460 Okay.

00:45:04.080 I get up.

00:45:04.680 I walked over and introduced myself, shook his hand.

00:45:06.700 And introduced himself as Ed Curran, the highest ranking FBI agent assigned inside CIA.

00:45:13.260 My mind was racing at that point.

00:45:15.520 And he said, just so y'all know, you're like, am I in trouble?

00:45:20.040 Because you got to put yourself in his shoes.

00:45:22.420 He came from an international assignment, gets put in human resources, which everyone freaking hates.

00:45:27.380 Then next thing you know, there's some random dude there in a suit that he doesn't know. 1.00

00:45:30.440 Who's this motherfucker? 1.00

00:45:31.400 Right? 1.00

00:45:32.020 And then the guy walks up and says, hey, FBI.

00:45:34.020 He's like, oh my God, what the hell?

00:45:35.880 I do not, right? 0.89

00:45:39.900 This is the equivalent of like, you know, being a, you being a drug dealer and they kick

00:45:43.040 your house down.

00:45:45.120 So I could only imagine what was going through his mind.

00:45:47.720 Like what's the FBI guy doing here?

00:45:51.300 You got to give me an answer now.

00:45:53.460 If you say no, go back down to HR.

00:45:56.000 If you say yes, you'll figure out what this is all about.

00:45:59.180 And I just decided if this is a way out of HR, I'm in. 1.00

00:46:01.900 I said, fuck it. 1.00

00:46:02.720 Yeah, I'll take it. 1.00

00:46:03.320 I'll do it.

00:46:05.000 Once he accepted the assignment, I said, go outside now.

00:46:08.660 Go outside the building.

00:46:09.460 Don't stop.

00:46:10.480 Don't say anything to anybody.

00:46:12.120 And two people will meet you.

00:46:13.580 I said, yes, sir.

00:46:14.400 And I left the building.

00:46:15.020 And they took me to a safe house in Northern Virginia.

00:46:21.100 The case agents then briefed me on what the issue was.

00:46:23.920 And they told me, we have a spy inside the building and we want you to help us catch him.

00:46:29.260 Initially, it was like getting kicked in the stomach.

00:46:32.160 Another major espionage case inside of CIA.

00:46:36.520 It was a devastating piece of information.

00:46:38.460 We had to have someone as close up as possible to Nicholson and John hopefully was going to be that candidate.

00:46:45.520 But you couldn't thrust John on Jim or Jim would be suspicious.

00:46:50.040 You had to do it in a way that Jim would think it was his choice, his selection that brought John into the game.

00:46:55.720 The first step was go through the interview process and get him to pick you.

00:46:59.620 And that job was the deputy chief of the unit that was run by Nicholson.

00:47:05.500 The interview wasn't particularly long.

00:47:09.000 But I got along well with him.

00:47:13.520 It was clear he didn't have a lot of good things to say about the structure of the leadership cadre in the agency.

00:47:19.280 My views of HR were a good laughter in the interview.

00:47:22.300 And he understood completely that I thought I was going to die if I stayed there.

00:47:30.460 Whenever you have an interaction with anybody that's a plan.

00:47:34.380 So this is smart.

00:47:35.180 They're making him feel like the target here.

00:47:37.120 They're making him feel like he has some authority because he's able to actually interview the guy who's acting in an undercover capacity to actually spy on him.

00:47:46.420 So this is a smart move to make that person still feel comfortable and still have like they have some type of authority.

00:47:51.660 The activity, you always come back and reflect on what you did.

00:47:55.920 And I came away with the opinion that it went pretty good.

00:47:59.380 Jim did an excellent job as a manager choosing the best person for that job.

00:48:04.860 And ultimately, he chose McGuire.

00:48:06.620 Unbeknownst to Jim, John was a spy.

00:48:09.040 And it was probably the last person he wanted to have next to him.

00:48:11.620 And ended up sitting in the desk in the office right next to.

00:48:14.880 And more than likely, guys, the reason why the FBI selected this guy to be the case officer is because he probably was a go-getter, probably had a good reputation and knew that if he was the one to be interviewed by the target, he would more than likely get the position.

00:48:27.880 Nicholson's.

00:48:28.360 And then it was game on.

00:48:29.680 Going to McGuire is a big, big risk.

00:48:32.600 Because now you're going outside your perimeter.

00:48:35.000 This is a person who's going to be the closest to Nicholson.

00:48:37.640 Day in and day out.

00:48:38.600 They're going to go to lunch.

00:48:39.340 They're going to, you know, talk about cases. 1.00

00:48:41.180 So that person could do something stupid. 0.99

00:48:43.560 And Nicholson, of course, would be alerted to do something wrong here. 1.00

00:48:47.940 Basically, you have a one-strike scenario.

00:48:50.500 If you mess up or you give away something, you could derail the entire investigation.

00:48:57.240 I was brought in as an undercover guy to work against Jim Nicholson.

00:49:09.460 My job was to catch him doing an espionage act that would directly tie him to the Russians.

00:49:18.560 So in the spring of 1996, I started as Nicholson's deputy in the counterterrorism center.

00:49:25.200 At that time, radical Islamic terrorism was on the rise.

00:49:30.400 So there was a lot of real work stuff going on that you had to focus on.

00:49:34.180 They were looking at critical players who eventually became known post-9-11.

00:49:39.180 So it was very critical stuff that they were doing.

00:49:41.740 In the middle of all that, you're trying to catch your boss compiling information that he's going to give to the Russians.

00:49:49.720 To have someone, a human source, in touch with him every day, it's invaluable.

00:49:55.200 Getting to know him was part of the exercise.

00:49:57.120 I spent a lot of time going to lunch with him, drinking beer with him.

00:50:01.760 My goal with the investigation was to immerse myself in him.

00:50:08.320 But it was mentally draining every day because I describe him as a flawed personality, a flawed man.

00:50:15.280 Over time, that became very apparent that he had a special view of himself, a ruthless, narcissistic guy who didn't care about anybody.

00:50:25.000 Jim Nicholson is the most formidable opponent you could possibly go up against as a counterespionage agent because he's so well trained in the craft.

00:50:41.800 And McGuire provided personality assessment back to the FBI.

00:50:46.320 What's he thinking?

00:50:47.080 How is he thinking?

00:50:47.940 And John was very, very good at it.

00:50:49.500 And even with John, as close as John was to him, it still wasn't giving us the exact intel and insights as to what is he doing minute by minute, second by second.

00:50:59.620 And that's one of the reasons why we eventually knew he had to get a fiber optic camera in his office.

00:51:04.660 You know, you see those those tile ceilings with the thousands of little pinholes in them.

00:51:09.440 It was no bigger than just one of those little pinholes.

00:51:11.540 And this is pretty impressive, guys, because this is the mid 90s when you're getting this type of technology.

00:51:19.220 You know what I mean?

00:51:20.520 Or late 90s at this point, possibly.

00:51:23.700 At one point, Nicholson got up on his chair and was rooting around in the ceiling.

00:51:29.060 He was getting up and actually reaching up into the ceiling and pushing tiles.

00:51:33.260 What did you do? 0.99

00:51:34.300 John, move your butt. 0.99

00:51:35.140 He's lifting tiles. 0.99

00:51:36.120 Doesn't take much more than that.

00:51:37.060 John understands the implications.

00:51:38.220 So I just barged into his office and he was standing on the chair.

00:51:43.160 And I asked, nice save.

00:51:46.200 So I said, what the hell are you doing in here?

00:51:49.520 He says, I thought something was loose.

00:51:51.580 I was just taking a look.

00:51:53.120 I said, OK.

00:51:57.340 He didn't find anything.

00:51:58.940 He didn't disrupt anything.

00:52:00.780 So there was no compromise and everybody breathed a huge sigh of relief.

00:52:04.440 Next thing we needed was to get access to his van that he parks in the parking lot.

00:52:12.180 That was a big thing.

00:52:13.500 He was like a Northern Virginia soccer mom.

00:52:15.840 He had a minivan.

00:52:17.600 But for him, I mean, it fit the mold.

00:52:19.960 He was playing a role.

00:52:21.920 He didn't want to attract any attention to himself.

00:52:23.780 Single dad driving a minivan with three kids. 0.57

00:52:27.620 Invisible guy in Northern Virginia.

00:52:29.220 And we managed to manipulate him in a way that he would go on a business trip, leave

00:52:34.080 his van at the Langley compound as opposed to park in his driveway.

00:52:39.580 Oh, man.

00:52:40.480 Them ruses are coming in. 1.00

00:52:41.540 Gotcha, bitch. 1.00

00:52:42.580 Home. 1.00

00:52:44.120 Then, of course, we didn't want to get careless or lazy.

00:52:46.760 There are still eyes on the Langley compound.

00:52:48.720 So we did it really, really late at night.

00:52:52.100 We had to pick up that van, physically pick it up, you know, forklift it because he may

00:52:57.840 have checked the odometer reading on it, pulled it into another garage on CIA compound,

00:53:02.260 and the FBI went through the whole van.

00:53:04.460 See all the steps they got to take to make this happen, man?

00:53:06.920 You're dealing with smart individuals.

00:53:08.680 So, you know, this is you got to be one step ahead of the guy you're investigating, especially

00:53:12.620 with high stakes cases like this with espionage.

00:53:14.200 So I applaud the FBI here for taking, like, you know, super, how do I say, careful steps

00:53:20.620 to protect the integrity of the case.

00:53:24.420 Some people say, isn't that a little extreme, putting it on a flatbed so the odometer wouldn't

00:53:28.040 even change?

00:53:28.520 I said, not if you're trained like Jim was trained.

00:53:32.040 He knows how to detect surveillance.

00:53:34.460 He could put traps in the car.

00:53:36.120 He knows all these techniques.

00:53:39.100 You underestimate him at your own peril is what we felt.

00:53:44.200 They went through that van and they got significant data, intelligence data.

00:53:51.140 He had to left his computer in there, everything.

00:53:54.160 We were able to image that laptop and do it.

00:53:56.520 Bingo.

00:53:58.360 A quick initial assessment as to what was on there.

00:54:01.960 And we found a tasking order from his Russian handler.

00:54:06.300 And that's even before we did the really in-depth analysis that we were able to do.

00:54:10.060 An off-site, we discovered that he'd given the true name and identity of the spies who

00:54:15.500 had gone through this.

00:54:16.400 An off-site, guys, is another office that an agency controls where they, you know, run

00:54:21.020 their investigations, but it's not like the official one.

00:54:22.880 You know, like, typically there's going to be, like, the big office you can Google and

00:54:25.360 you'll be able to find it.

00:54:26.300 An off-site is typically another office utilized by, especially a law enforcement agency, to

00:54:30.740 stage, make things happen, go through evidence, et cetera.

00:54:33.520 So that's what they mean by off-site.

00:54:34.880 And then when he says a tasking, that means instruction from his Russian handler on what

00:54:39.900 to do next to continue the facilitation of sharing information, or in this case, sharing

00:54:46.200 American secrets with Russia.

00:54:48.600 CIA training program with him to his Russian handler.

00:54:52.360 That was a line that really frosted me at that point, because that is a mercenary activity

00:54:57.340 that I don't think any other spy has ever done.

00:55:03.520 The question at that point is, do you have enough for arrest and conviction?

00:55:11.060 We didn't have that at that time. 0.80

00:55:15.380 I wanted to shoot him at his desk, the truth be told, but I wanted to catch him.

00:55:22.580 And in October, we had the first major break in the case. 0.83

00:55:26.860 I had gone off campus and had lunch with Nicholson.

00:55:30.040 And Nicholson was driving erratically, and it looked like he was doing a surveillance detection

00:55:35.660 run, and he said, we're going to a post office.

00:55:38.260 I collect stamps.

00:55:39.160 There's some unusual stamps here.

00:55:41.280 And we went out to the post office.

00:55:42.940 He bought them, and then we proceeded back to the building from there.

00:55:47.100 And for me, looking at it as a case officer, I thought, he's going to mail something overseas.

00:55:53.580 This is actually pretty cool how he did this.

00:55:55.280 This guy was smart, man.

00:55:56.180 Going to the post office, get a special stamp, that would be a clue.

00:56:01.100 That would have alerted the FBI right away that something's unusual happening.

00:56:06.940 John gave us the heads up that we needed to watch him like a...

00:56:10.040 But surface level, you would never suspect he's doing anything nefarious just for getting

00:56:13.720 stamps.

00:56:14.600 But since the FBI had this guy there, they're like, oh, well, that's kind of weird.

00:56:18.360 What's going on here?

00:56:19.060 Hawk, we summoned the resources, and we did just that.

00:56:23.980 They bet heavy on what I told them.

00:56:26.400 They covered him relentlessly, and they caught him mailing a postcard to the Russians.

00:56:32.160 They processed his postcard as evidence, and then put the mail back in the box and sent

00:56:37.840 it on its way.

00:56:38.900 The postcard indicating his intent to...

00:56:41.100 Now, so let me break this down for you guys real quick, how labor-intensive that actually

00:56:45.920 is.

00:56:46.580 Now, me as a Fed watching this, I'm like, to average viewer, I might be like, oh, wow,

00:56:50.340 okay, so they intercepted the mail.

00:56:51.460 Who cares?

00:56:52.200 No, bro.

00:56:53.060 You got a guy telling you, yo, we're about to do this.

00:56:55.960 He's getting a postcard, et cetera.

00:56:57.160 You're mobilizing units.

00:56:58.180 Remember, guys, there's no cell phones.

00:56:59.420 This is mid-90s.

00:57:00.440 You're mobilizing units, getting out there as quickly as possible, getting eyes on him.

00:57:03.960 You see him put the postcard in.

00:57:06.080 Now, it's like the FBI has keys to open up the mail, guys.

00:57:09.200 They got to go to a postal inspector.

00:57:11.260 Not only do they got to go to a postal inspector, they got to go to a postal inspector they trust

00:57:14.440 and say, hey, bro, we need you to help us out.

00:57:16.920 Open up this mailbox, right?

00:57:19.120 So, and this is before the days of like the JCTF being huge.

00:57:22.740 So, a lot of times there'll be postal inspectors on these task forces, but this is pre-9-11.

00:57:26.320 So, they got to contact the guy.

00:57:27.880 Hey, can you open this up for me?

00:57:29.160 Then they have to go through the mail, find the postcard, put everything back like nothing

00:57:32.980 happened, and continue on with the investigation.

00:57:36.180 So, even though we just saw like maybe 10, 20 seconds of a snippet of them opening, following

00:57:41.920 him, getting the mailbox open, et cetera, me as an agent looking, I know what they had

00:57:46.120 to do to actually get that mailbox open.

00:57:47.900 So, it's quite a bit of work, man.

00:57:50.000 Quite a bit of work.

00:57:53.360 Investigations ain't easy, guys, especially when you're dealing with espionage.

00:57:55.640 These guys cover their tracks.

00:57:57.080 Well, for the most part.

00:57:59.140 Travel and meet with his Russian handler.

00:58:00.860 Hello, old friend.

00:58:04.400 I hope it is possible that you will be my guest for a ski holiday this year on 23, 24 November.

00:58:09.920 A bit early, but it would fit my schedule nicely.

00:58:12.940 I am fine and all is well.

00:58:14.800 Hope you are the same and can accept my invitation.

00:58:17.700 That's...

00:58:18.020 Coded message, guys.

00:58:19.640 Regards, Neville R. Strachey.

00:58:22.600 Who the heck is Neville R. Strachey?

00:58:25.000 It could be a code name for him.

00:58:27.400 There's a variety of things it could mean.

00:58:29.320 That's a communication between him and the Russians.

00:58:32.200 Saying, I'm ready for my next meet.

00:58:34.160 It's a signal that he's doing so.

00:58:36.440 Once we saw the contents of that letter,

00:58:39.120 we knew we had to finally bring this thing down.

00:58:44.120 But what really put the nails in that final coffin

00:58:47.240 was prior to his trip, we witnessed Jim on that fiber optic camera

00:58:51.060 photographing classified documents to pass along to his Russian handlers.

00:58:55.560 We knew he...

00:58:56.140 Oh, Lee. 1.00

00:58:57.400 Oh, shit! 1.00

00:58:58.460 Oh, shit! 1.00

00:58:58.960 He was taking pictures of classified documents. 1.00

00:59:02.440 He was storing up and getting ready for his trip.

00:59:04.840 It was like cramming for an exam.

00:59:07.100 We knew that if he was leaving the country for a meeting with the Russians,

00:59:11.580 that Nicholson would have to take the compromising material

00:59:13.940 and his intelligence with him.

00:59:15.220 So we were very confident that when he left on this next trip,

00:59:19.060 he would have classified material in his purse or his bags in some fashion.

00:59:23.560 We just had to find it.

00:59:25.920 We've got enough to convict him of espionage and arrest him.

00:59:30.440 They caught Jim Nicholson mailing a postcard to the Russians.

00:59:42.360 That's a communication saying, I'm ready for my next meet.

00:59:45.660 It's a signal that he's doing something.

00:59:47.140 But what really put the nails in that final coffin was prior to his trip,

00:59:51.520 we witnessed Jim photographing classified documents to pass along to his Russian handlers.

00:59:56.420 We were very confident that when he left on this next trip,

00:59:59.560 he would have classified material on his purse or his bags in some fashion.

01:00:03.820 We just had to find him.

01:00:04.760 We've got enough to convict him of espionage and arrest him.

01:00:10.160 November 16, 1996, at Dulles International Airport.

01:00:14.560 The FBI finally brought this matter to conclusion.

01:00:17.180 The FBI placed themselves throughout the area in undercover positions surrounding the entire plane.

01:00:24.040 We had agents positioned as bag handlers.

01:00:27.500 There were FBI agents everywhere.

01:00:29.560 He would go dressed up as bag handlers.

01:00:31.640 They went hard in the paint, man.

01:00:32.860 Through security, so you were sure that he had nothing on him that could be a weapon.

01:00:37.480 He was also through security and committed himself to leaving the country

01:00:41.040 to prove that he was en route to meet the Russians.

01:00:45.460 They went up on the tarmac there at Dulles

01:00:47.860 and let Jim know that his life as a spy had now ended.

01:00:53.200 His entire life collapsed around him in a five second.

01:00:57.460 Yeah, that's an L right there for him.

01:00:59.980 But wait, there's more, guys.

01:01:01.900 The documentary gets crazier.

01:01:04.420 Window, where he realized at that moment, my life is over.

01:01:09.460 The look on his face was the only honest look I saw on his face the whole time I knew the man.

01:01:16.060 This arrest demonstrates that the counterintelligence reforms that have been put into place in the wake of Aldrich Ames

01:01:22.380 have taken hold and that have led to our success in catching the spy Nicholson.

01:01:29.040 In February 1997, Jim finally reached the plea deal with the prosecution.

01:01:33.380 And he was there at the trial table as he read his statement.

01:01:38.840 We locked eye contact briefly and then he just turned away, but his face looked ashen when he turned away.

01:01:46.220 And then he walked away.

01:01:47.520 That's the last time I've ever laid eyes on the guy.

01:01:50.540 Jim Nicholson was mad as hell because that dude put him away.

01:01:53.340 Jim Nicholson reached a plea agreement and was sentenced to 23 years.

01:01:57.600 And at his request, he was transferred to a prison in Oregon so that he.

01:02:01.900 Now, I know you guys are probably wondering, yo, why do you only get 23 years?

01:02:04.320 The reason why, guys, is because he probably gave a whole bunch of cooperation and identified other people involved in this conspiracy as well.

01:02:13.960 So for him to get only 23 years for a crime like this tells me he provided a significant amount of information and he cooperated.

01:02:20.140 I know for a fact that he took a polygraph.

01:02:22.200 He had been debriefed several times, et cetera.

01:02:24.740 So that's the only reason why he got such a polite sentence for such a serious crime.

01:02:28.520 In contrast to Robert Hansen, who's doing life in prison right now for a very similar charge.

01:02:33.520 He can be close to his children and his family.

01:02:36.620 Why was he spying for the Russians?

01:02:38.180 What was he getting from it?

01:02:39.940 I think it's a good question, but I don't know.

01:02:42.520 He claims he needed the money, but I think that's just an excuse.

01:02:49.160 I think he viewed himself as a master spy that could operate with impunity in our face.

01:02:55.420 It's like pursuing adventure.

01:02:57.400 All right.

01:02:57.660 Both those guys are wrong.

01:02:58.580 The real reason, guys, is because he made about $300,000 during his whole 10 years of spy.

01:03:02.420 And the guy had a lot of debt.

01:03:04.340 He was, you know, needed to pay off a bunch of his credit card debt, American Express, et cetera.

01:03:09.120 And we're going to go through some of those documents after this documentary.

01:03:11.420 But the biggest reason was money.

01:03:14.060 He had gotten kind of hit with a divorce pretty hard back in 94.

01:03:17.160 So he was in a very susceptible position to be turned by, you know, a foreign government.

01:03:23.320 Sure.

01:03:23.640 All the time in the Foreign Service.

01:03:26.300 Wherever you go, you'll find something interesting to do.

01:03:30.180 He asked for it.

01:03:31.740 He chose poorly.

01:03:33.740 And he paid for it.

01:03:34.820 I don't pay for it until he draws his last breath.

01:03:37.600 In the summer of 2007, I got called down to the special agent in charge's office out of the blue and asked if I was interested in working on a very important...

01:03:54.240 Here we go.

01:03:54.780 Part two of it, guys.

01:03:55.880 It gets better. 0.99

01:03:56.980 Oh, shit. 1.00

01:03:57.680 Oh, shit. 1.00

01:03:58.220 Important case. 1.00

01:03:59.420 It would ultimately be very high profile.

01:04:03.040 And so, of course, the next logical question from my perspective was, well, what is it?

01:04:08.220 And the answer was, you've got to...

01:04:10.480 So this guy, guys, is a regular special agent from the FBI.

01:04:13.360 So he's retired now.

01:04:15.080 But when you're the regular, like when you're just the title of special agent, you're the one that actually carries cases, which would make sense that they want to bring him to actually be the investigator and lead case agent in the situation versus the supervisor overseeing it.

01:04:26.460 Like the other two guys that we saw in the documentary.

01:04:30.280 Say yes before we'll tell you what it is that you're going to be working on.

01:04:34.300 I was called into my supervisor's office in Eugene, Oregon, and he told me that this sensitive case had come up and he said he wanted me to close or...

01:04:43.240 This guy right here more than likely was...

01:04:44.880 Because he's also an FBI special agent and you guys can see from the title.

01:04:47.540 He was more than likely the co-case agent on this with that other guy that we saw.

01:04:52.160 When you got big cases like this, guys, you typically need two to three agents.

01:04:54.800 It's a case agent running the case.

01:04:56.000 And a case agent is the person that's responsible for getting the reports ready, bringing it and making it, preparing the case for prosecution and trial, get the use of everything they need, debrief informants, interview suspects, etc.

01:05:08.740 So something of this magnitude more than likely would need two guys.

01:05:12.380 Reassigned every case that I had.

01:05:14.880 Which you're about to see what's about to pop off in a second, guys.

01:05:17.220 Which was very unusual and considering I had some significant cases going at the time in terrorism cases.

01:05:23.760 So I drove the 110 miles up to Portland and got brief.

01:05:27.680 We learned that Jim Nicholson's son, Nathan Nicholson, was suspected of working with his father and making contact with the Russians.

01:05:36.820 I was familiar with James Nicholson case, you know, him being the highest ranking CIA officer ever convicted of espionage.

01:05:43.740 But Nathan, I knew nothing about Nathan.

01:05:45.780 I mean, he was, he's 12 years old when his dad went to jail in 96.

01:05:49.000 At that point, we needed additional information to solidly make the criminal case.

01:05:54.920 Well, even though Jim was in prison, he was very high up in the ranks and he knew quite a bit about the inner workings of the agency.

01:06:02.340 You never know for sure what information that he could still be giving them.

01:06:06.420 We needed to find out what it was that was being provided by Jim Nicholson to the Russians.

01:06:14.320 So we went back and looked at the telephone calls that he had made to try to glean information that might be useful for the case.

01:06:24.360 You have a prepaid call from...

01:06:26.900 This is Dad Pardetti.

01:06:28.300 An inmate at...

01:06:29.540 Hey, Bob.

01:06:31.740 Hey, Nathan.

01:06:32.260 I thought I'd call you and see what kind of hours you're keeping these days.

01:06:36.420 Oh, uh, pretty, pretty much the same, I guess.

01:06:40.420 Yeah?

01:06:41.220 Yeah, I'm on the road heading back now.

01:06:43.920 Oh, are you?

01:06:44.600 Okay, okay.

01:06:46.020 Did everything go okay?

01:06:48.180 Yeah, everything went real well.

01:06:50.520 I got a, uh, uh, sale for about, uh, five, five K.

01:06:56.500 Oh, so businesses pick it up, huh?

01:06:59.840 Yeah, yeah, sure is.

01:07:01.560 Oh, excellent, excellent.

01:07:03.420 I mean, there were some odd phone calls of him making a sale for 5K.

01:07:06.780 And Nathan was barely trading water.

01:07:08.800 You know, I think he made, you know...

01:07:10.260 That's a clue right there.

01:07:12.340 About $9,000 in a year from Pizza Hut.

01:07:15.180 He lived in a small apartment over in Springfield, Oregon.

01:07:19.220 Our job was now to start peeling the onion about Nathan and finding out what he might

01:07:25.040 be doing for his father that involved Russian intelligence.

01:07:29.920 Nathan had been going to visit Jim since he was 12 years old, and he idolized his dad

01:07:36.280 from those contacts.

01:07:37.460 He seemed to be a very dutiful son.

01:07:40.560 You know, really cared about his family, his siblings, his religious convictions.

01:07:44.740 Seemed like a pretty nice person that had been trying to make his own way since he was

01:07:49.180 probably about 12 years old, you know, when things weren't working out for him.

01:07:52.040 He tried to go to school, then he tried the army, and then he got injured.

01:07:55.120 And, you know, his life had been a series of setbacks.

01:07:57.740 I think Nathan was vulnerable at that point, too.

01:08:01.480 And $5,000 back then, guys, was worth about $7,000 today.

01:08:05.040 Looking for some direction, and $4,700, roughly, purchasing power.

01:08:10.580 Dad had a plan in mind.

01:08:13.840 I do know that he used scripture to...

01:08:18.040 My man still wanted to keep spying.

01:08:22.140 Eldad tried to influence and manipulate his boy in a way that, in my view, was not positive.

01:08:30.680 Hey, I got a verse for you.

01:08:32.580 It's Isaiah 45, 3.

01:08:36.120 Isaiah 45, 3.

01:08:38.080 Yep.

01:08:38.900 It's really going to be a good one.

01:08:41.120 I got my Bible here.

01:08:42.900 And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness, secret riches.

01:08:47.320 I will do this so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name.

01:08:53.060 Yep.

01:08:54.160 Wow.

01:08:55.080 I like that.

01:08:56.080 Yeah.

01:08:56.800 I like that.

01:08:58.640 I claimed it for you and me.

01:09:00.240 Yeah.

01:09:02.580 Self-snitching.

01:09:07.120 Yo, Eldad in the chat, guys.

01:09:08.860 Eldad in the chat. 0.99

01:09:10.360 Did he forget that these goddamn jail calls are recorded? 1.00

01:09:16.360 Absolutely. 0.99

01:09:18.540 You know, basically was telling Nathan he was a loyal soldier and, you know, we're doing God's work.

01:09:23.920 It's appalling.

01:09:24.920 You know, I mean, again, I don't think Jim would make a father of the year, you know, far from it.

01:09:31.620 We were eager to start monitoring Nathan's telephone calls.

01:09:39.900 His travel in his car, all the kinds of ways that he might communicate with the Russians to find out what was it that he could be giving them that might be of value.

01:09:51.660 We were able to monitor his computer use, and we were able to get a GPS on his car.

01:10:00.220 The GPS was put on the 5th of December, which was a Friday.

01:10:04.900 And back then, guys, if I'm not mistaken, they didn't need a warrant to put a GPS or a tracker on your car.

01:10:11.020 I'm going to actually look this up, and it was the FBI that fucked this one up.

01:10:13.760 Now, if the feds want to put a tracker on your car, you need a search warrant.

01:10:16.780 This case actually might be the reason why it got messed up.

01:10:19.320 I'm going to look it up for y'all real fast, but let's keep going.

01:10:22.720 But it was not until the following Monday when they went to test the GPS for the first time.

01:10:26.300 It worked perfectly, but the problem was the car was at Portland International Airport.

01:10:33.660 That was a surprise, not a pleasant surprise.

01:10:36.300 We found out he had flown out at Portland International to leave a crew.

01:10:39.900 So immediately, we assumed that he was going to Peru to meet with the Russians.

01:10:45.900 We figured out what his itinerary was in terms of when he would be returning.

01:10:50.180 The decision was made to intercept him when he came back into the country.

01:10:56.300 And to intercept him when he comes back into the country, you've got to go through customs.

01:11:03.140 And they'd do that.

01:11:05.300 I'm son.

01:11:05.940 Nathan, you'd phone out at Portland International to leave a crew.

01:11:09.940 So immediately, we...

01:11:11.240 Okay, here's a case that I was talking about, guys.

01:11:13.220 I'll show you real fast.

01:11:14.600 It's this one right here.

01:11:15.820 United States vs. Jones, 2012.

01:11:18.400 Ruling that installing GPS tracking device on a vehicle and using the device to monitor the vehicle's movements.

01:11:22.680 It constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment.

01:11:24.000 And so basically, guys, prior to 2012, you'd be able to just throw a tracker on any car, no need for a warrant, et cetera.

01:11:30.300 And I remember when I was an intern back in 2010, even at Homeland Security, they were doing that all day.

01:11:35.640 But it was when the FBI did it and kind of got jammed up with Jones that this Supreme Court filing was filed where it constitutes a search.

01:11:44.200 And you can no longer just throw a GPS on a car.

01:11:46.840 So this is prior to that.

01:11:49.560 So these guys were just probably putting more trackers on every one of this dude's cars.

01:11:54.600 And even more so because it's a national security case.

01:11:56.780 He assumed that he was going to Peru to meet with the Russians.

01:12:03.240 And a decision was made to intercept him when he came back into the country.

01:12:10.120 When he came through Customs in Houston, we weren't waiting for him.

01:12:14.500 We had FBI agents down there.

01:12:16.320 They, in concert with Customs and Border Protection, pulled Nathan aside for secondary inspection.

01:12:21.820 They were able to separate him from him.

01:12:25.680 And this is where an HSI agent would come in to help the FBI.

01:12:27.980 I can't tell you how many times, you know, the FBI needs assistance at the airport, whatever.

01:12:31.100 They don't own the ports.

01:12:32.800 HSI does.

01:12:33.760 And CBP officers can help.

01:12:35.240 But it's got to be HSI running the situation when the FBI shows up at the airport because HSI are actually special agents and investigators as well.

01:12:41.780 So CBP can do anything without the HSI being there.

01:12:44.720 So I know for a fact that when this guy came back into the country, they had to have had an HSI agent there present to facilitate this dump or whatever you guys are about to see here going on.

01:12:54.200 Because the FBI, contrary to popular belief, does not have customs authority like HSI does or CBP, which allows you to search someone when they come back into the country without a warrant, which is a very powerful tool that only HSI agents have when it comes to special agents.

01:13:10.040 Obviously, CBP officers have it as well, but they're not investigators, so it's got to be HSI to do it.

01:13:14.720 This backpack, and we were able to search that.

01:13:18.000 So while customs agents were interviewing Nathan about the purpose of it.

01:13:21.960 Think of CBP, a.k.a. Customs and Border Protection.

01:13:25.340 Think of them as the police department and HSI as the detectives, right?

01:13:29.260 DHS is one big police department.

01:13:31.480 HSI the detectives in that department, and CBP and Border Patrol are considered the uniform officers.

01:13:37.540 This trip, FBI agents were copying all the paperwork that Nathan had brought back with him.

01:13:47.160 And during that search, we found...

01:13:48.540 And the reason why they had customs officials interviewing him was so that it could look like a routine interview.

01:13:52.840 Hey, what's your reason for traveling, etc.

01:13:57.040 Kind of keep them calm while the bureau agents, along probably an HSI agent, help them search his stuff and get them whatever they need.

01:14:05.160 Because HSI can also search your phone at the border as well, which is a powerful authority that FBI can't do either.

01:14:10.740 So being able to search someone's phone at the border is even bigger.

01:14:13.360 A number of very incriminating items that really broke the case wide open.

01:14:21.100 They found some money that he brought back.

01:14:23.940 I think it was over $7,000 or $8,000 on him.

01:14:28.940 And they found a notebook that had a lot of...

01:14:32.220 And that's a very common tactic, guys, with criminals, where they'll come in with under $10,000 so they don't have to report it to customs, which, you know, takes the spot, keeps them out of the spotlight.

01:14:40.960 And because whenever you come in with $10,000 or more, you know, or for the matter of fact, you do any transaction in the United States that's over $10,000 or more, you have to file something called a currency transaction report, which is filed with the IRS.

01:14:54.120 Very interesting information in it.

01:14:58.760 The notebook was pretty much the jackpot.

01:15:02.160 It confirmed he had addresses of the Russian embassy in Mexico City.

01:15:05.800 He had the address for the Russian embassy in Lima, Peru.

01:15:08.220 The Russians were always very interested in trying to find out how Jim Nicholson got caught first go-around.

01:15:18.220 Just like any spy agency, they're concerned with moles in their midst.

01:15:24.700 The notebook confirmed that Jim used his son Nathan as a courier.

01:15:28.360 You know, the courier messages from Jim in prison and then courier questions back from the Russians through Nathan back to him in prison, for which they received compensation.

01:15:38.220 And in the notebook, we found information about this Mexican Yahoo account with a password in it.

01:15:44.180 And in order to use code words in their communication, his father would be Eugene.

01:15:48.540 He was Dick and the Russians were Nancy. 1.00

01:15:50.160 This little notebook had a treasure trove of information in it that then allowed us to pretty much predict what was going to happen from that point forward.

01:16:00.780 I think Nathan wanted to do such a good job and make sure he didn't make any mistakes and forget anything that he kept detailed notes.

01:16:08.100 Nathan was not a very good spy.

01:16:09.660 For obvious reasons, he didn't train like his dad.

01:16:17.400 After this all happened, they let him go on his way and went home.

01:16:22.140 We had discussions back at headquarters as to where we wanted to go with this case.

01:16:33.660 The evidence we got from the custom search in Houston was very suspicious, but in and of itself, you know, it was still circumstantial.

01:16:40.540 So a decision was made at that point that we were going to let this play out because we needed to develop additional information to solidly make.

01:16:49.880 Translation, the AUSA said, I need more.

01:16:51.940 Go back to the drawing board, guys.

01:16:53.360 I'm not indicted in this thing until I feel that we're going to win this thing in trial.

01:16:56.620 And this is one of the biggest differences between the feds and the state.

01:16:59.980 The feds, the AUSA, Assistant United States Attorney, or Assistant United States Attorney, isn't going to prosecute a case unless they feel like they have like a 100% chance of winning.

01:17:10.020 This is why feds don't lose. 0.99

01:17:11.460 They typically have the case ready to go to trial by the time the case is indicted, okay?

01:17:17.540 So you guys, let me break that down real quick.

01:17:20.240 When you indict someone, you formally charge them.

01:17:22.900 At that point, you're still gathering evidence.

01:17:24.460 It is what it is.

01:17:25.420 AUSAs aren't even going to indict until they're ready for trial.

01:17:28.820 Whereas you go to the state system with ADA, his assistant district attorneys, they'll go ahead and charge you on anything and try to figure out the trial later.

01:17:36.520 And you guys can see a perfect example of this with the Tory Lanez case where they're trying to introduce evidence, you know, after the fact or whatever.

01:17:42.020 Feds don't make rookie mistakes like that because they have the privilege of not having to worry about taking every single case.

01:17:47.940 So any case that does come to them typically is going to be serious, typically is going to be higher profile, and they're going to have that thing ready to go to trial by the time it's indicted.

01:17:55.880 That's one of the biggest differences between the feds and the state.

01:17:59.660 Feds don't lose for a reason. 0.98

01:18:01.260 The criminal case.

01:18:02.140 In October 2008, Nathan logged on to the Yahoo Mexican account using the password, and he'd left a message using the codenames to confirm another meeting with the Russians for a December 10th meeting in Nicholasia, Cyprus.

01:18:21.040 It was like, Ola, Nancy, it's good to hear from you.

01:18:25.140 My brother, Eugene, as well.

01:18:26.660 The Russians were Nancy, Nathan was Dick, and Jim was Eugene. 0.99

01:18:35.080 The meeting for Cyprus was on.

01:18:36.760 Prior to his trip to Cyprus, Nathan received a letter from his father, which, when I saw it, immediately jumped out at me as something that could not have been designed for Nathan's viewing, but had to have been for the Russians.

01:18:56.040 It was all sorts of information about Jim and his children.

01:19:00.080 All right, let's go ahead and read this letter out loud, guys.

01:19:07.420 Which, when I saw it, immediately jumped out at me.

01:19:10.440 All right, so it reads, Dear, um, oops, sorry, guys, hold on.

01:19:15.560 Dear, uh, dear son.

01:19:18.360 Hi, Tiger.

01:19:18.860 I want to thank you for your very moving letter to, of 10 August.

01:19:22.380 I want to also tell you that the qualities you said you had received from me, respect for others, discipline, endurance, faith, patience, love, and sheer willpower are very much qualities that apply to you, whether you receive them via me or, uh, I don't know what that end means.

01:19:39.140 I am so very proud of you, son.

01:19:41.700 You are a man of great courage and blessings to our entire family.

01:19:45.180 Next, I want to tell you my physical exam, how my physical exam went this month in general.

01:19:49.400 I am in excellent physical condition.

01:19:51.260 Here are some statistics.

01:19:52.720 Puts his weight, eye color, eye color corrected to 2020, or eye vision power, and then he puts his date of birth.

01:20:00.120 Blood pressure, 127 over 67.

01:20:01.900 Taken August 20th, 2008.

01:20:03.820 And notice how he has it written day, month, year.

01:20:09.800 That's a big catch because, guys, only in the United States do we put the month, day, then year.

01:20:14.600 Foreigners, though, typically put 2808, which would be strange to write it that way to your son, don't you think?

01:20:21.840 And he goes, continuing on, my blood work came back looking good.

01:20:26.120 No diseases, good cholesterol level, 7, 8, August, 2008.

01:20:30.520 My EKJ exam also looked good, 20, August, 2008.

01:20:34.260 I am not taking any medications and have a regular exercise regimen.

01:20:37.460 I do take one.

01:20:38.940 Let me get rid of these captions.

01:20:45.160 Sorry about that, guys.

01:20:47.160 I do take one aspirin a day.

01:20:49.320 I have no allergies.

01:20:50.260 I'm supposed to have redacted, but it's turning slowly to silver.

01:20:54.580 However, this can be corrected later, although the thinning will take a bit more work if I'm so inclined.

01:21:01.340 So even though it might look like a harmless letter at first, there's codes all over this thing.

01:21:05.740 And I want you guys to pay attention to how he was persistent on writing everything out in number, right?

01:21:12.240 So this is clearly a letter to his former handler giving him the current status of what's going on.

01:21:19.540 He has something that could not have been designed for Nathan's viewing, but had to have been for the Russians.

01:21:29.100 It was all sorts of information about Jim and his children.

01:21:35.300 Jim goes into his eldest son's background, who was in the Air Force.

01:21:39.380 Jeremy Nicholson, who was still in the military, he had a secret clearance.

01:21:43.480 Jim was trying to throw a camera.

01:21:44.620 And that was just one page of the letter, guys.

01:21:46.340 So I'm sure it was probably longer, which is why we didn't see that stuff in that little picture we saw.

01:21:52.460 It's the Russians like, hey, I have this other son. 1.00

01:21:55.700 Maybe down the road, this will be of some value.

01:22:00.140 Like, look at Jim's letters.

01:22:01.500 I go, Jim, you SOB.

01:22:03.880 You SOB to hear you did this to Nathan, and now you're putting this out there.

01:22:07.840 I mean, you could be actually putting your oldest son and family in jeopardy.

01:22:14.620 Nathan traveled, didn't learn his lesson, Cyprus, in December of 2008, for the purpose of meeting with the Russians while there.

01:22:29.180 He was supposed to meet them at a TGI Fridays on the evening of Wednesday, December the 8th.

01:22:36.800 The Russians met him at that location, and he was ultimately paid $12,000.

01:22:45.400 And he provided the Russians with the letter that had been given to him by Jim that had all the information about Jim and his children.

01:22:55.480 We knew we had enough evidence to charge the father, charge the son.

01:22:59.980 It was time to bring it to a close.

01:23:01.920 If I'm not mistaken, I think the PA was his codename that he used with his Russian handler versus using his real initials.

01:23:10.060 So that was also kind of a giveaway.

01:23:11.380 After Nathan came back from Cyprus, we knew we had enough evidence to charge the father, charge the son.

01:23:25.100 It was time to bring it to a close.

01:23:26.300 And so when he came back from Cyprus, Nathan was interviewed on the 15th of December in 2008.

01:23:33.100 That was right when he came back, when he was tired, when he was suffering from jet lag.

01:23:36.160 You know, it was a good time to catch him off guard, get him out of his comfort zone.

01:23:41.380 But he started off just lying, and he lied for the first hour of the interview about what he was doing in Cyprus and why he went.

01:23:54.340 He stopped at one point and said, look, it won't be.

01:23:56.660 That's very typical, guys.

01:23:58.180 You rarely get a confession right up front.

01:23:59.880 Typically, the first hour is building rapport, letting them lie, catching them in lies here and there.

01:24:04.580 And, you know, people think it's easy to interview suspects.

01:24:06.960 It's not.

01:24:07.820 You have a do-over.

01:24:08.940 We'll give you a mulligan.

01:24:09.820 We'll give you a chance to set this right.

01:24:11.860 You know, you say, lying to the FBI is a crime.

01:24:13.760 We know quite a bit about your travel.

01:24:16.060 I think he really wanted to get this off his chest.

01:24:19.220 And for the next hour or two, he pretty much confessed everything and gave a written confession.

01:24:25.620 Well, that's why you don't talk to the police, guys.

01:24:29.680 But they probably had so much overwhelming evidence.

01:24:31.760 He was just like, oh, I don't know what I'm doing.

01:24:33.180 And obviously, he's a kid.

01:24:34.560 He doesn't know any better.

01:24:35.440 He's just following his dad's orders. 0.98

01:24:36.400 So, hell for him.

01:24:38.240 But he didn't actually get arrested until a couple weeks later.

01:24:41.460 We wanted to see what he might say post-interview while we still had electronic coverage of him.

01:24:48.080 You know, his conversation with other people showing guilty knowledge.

01:24:51.640 So, this is actually really smart that they're doing this because what that allows them to do is when they listen to the phone calls, this is what you call tickling the wire.

01:24:59.500 And what this basically entails is anytime you take like an investigative step in your investigation where like there's some kind of overt law enforcement presence, a lot of times phone calls are going to be made right after or, you know, a day or two after, maybe minutes after where they talk about their experience to someone that they trust.

01:25:16.700 And if you have the right phones tapped, right, you can go ahead and listen to it, which will give you even more evidence to show that they're culpable.

01:25:24.020 So, this was actually very smart that they kind of let him stew for a bit and monitor the phones, monitor the pen registers, monitor the phone logs, and go from there and see if they can identify other potential conspirators.

01:25:34.420 And one of the conversations we overheard is after he was interviewed by the FBI was with his sister, Star.

01:25:46.920 Nathan, are you okay?

01:25:48.600 Yeah.

01:25:50.740 Oh, hold on, guys.

01:25:52.220 No, that is not what I want.

01:25:54.620 I don't know why I did that.

01:25:55.920 Sorry, guys.

01:25:56.980 Let's go back to it right here.

01:25:58.720 And there's a bunch of good episodes, a bunch of good stuff on this show, guys.

01:26:02.960 Yeah, I'm okay.

01:26:03.500 We're going to be covering a bunch of it, so don't worry.

01:26:05.440 Are you okay?

01:26:06.580 I'm good.

01:26:07.500 What's up with the FBI?

01:26:09.540 Well, it's kind of a long story, to be honest with you.

01:26:13.520 You know, the FBI interviewed everybody.

01:26:15.900 Yeah, I know.

01:26:16.740 I know.

01:26:18.860 Bro.

01:26:20.540 FBI, help me!

01:26:23.180 But what was going on is I was transporting some information.

01:26:28.360 Uh-huh.

01:26:29.320 And, you know, getting paid for it.

01:26:31.840 Uh-huh.

01:26:33.460 Holy bro!

01:26:35.660 Ha-ha! 1.00

01:26:36.600 Yo! 1.00

01:26:38.300 Talk about incriminating.

01:26:39.860 This is the L all the way. 1.00

01:26:42.020 You stupid! 1.00

01:26:43.100 Ha-ha-ha! 1.00

01:26:43.860 If I'm the case agent listening to this phone call, I'm like, yo, this is gold.

01:26:48.100 This is awesome.

01:26:49.780 Uh, yeah.

01:26:50.520 And on top of that, this is going to implicate his father.

01:26:53.120 Remember, guys, they're going to probably try to, they're going to go after his dad with

01:26:55.640 this, too.

01:26:57.200 Okay.

01:26:58.380 And that's what the whole deal was about.

01:27:00.860 Who's information was it for?

01:27:02.220 Uh, well, it was, it was for, uh, the Russians. 0.82

01:27:07.940 Ho-ho! 1.00

01:27:10.220 Yo! 1.00

01:27:11.460 And his sister, her reaction's hilarious.

01:27:14.160 Dude!

01:27:15.880 Seriously, it just sounds kind of like what Daddy did.

01:27:19.620 Yeah, it was.

01:27:20.880 Ho-ho-ho! 1.00

01:27:21.880 Boom, boka! 0.98

01:27:22.540 Exactly what Daddy did, and he acknowledged that he'd sort of been living alive for the

01:27:29.580 last year and a half.

01:27:33.460 I went out to talk to Jim Nicholson in the prison on December the 15th.

01:27:38.680 I showed him a postcard that had written on it, Welcome to Cyprus.

01:27:45.400 And I explained to him at that point that we knew what had been going on, and he said,

01:27:49.960 well, it sounds like what you're trying to do is, uh, put Nathan in jail.

01:27:54.460 So before I, uh, say anything, I, I think I'm going to need to talk to an attorney.

01:28:00.440 See how much smarter the dad is versus the son?

01:28:02.880 As a parent myself, I would have thought he'd been ready to do most anything to try to get

01:28:08.300 Nathan out of the jam, but he didn't help his son.

01:28:13.780 In January, Nathan.

01:28:15.060 Well, let's be honest, like, in that type of situation, you're not going to get less

01:28:19.920 time for your son if you cooperate.

01:28:21.300 You typically want to go with a lawyer, get that lawyer involved, then come back to the

01:28:26.240 government and try to negotiate.

01:28:27.480 So, you know, I got to play devil's advocate here.

01:28:30.560 He was actually smarter to not say anything, contact his attorney, then try to negotiate

01:28:34.960 through the attorney versus trying to, you know, make a deal with the agent.

01:28:37.980 Because to be honest with y'all, agents can't really do nothing.

01:28:40.520 And this is coming from a former agent.

01:28:41.880 I got to do everything through the prosecutor's office.

01:28:43.680 It's like, you know, that's why you're instructed, you know, when you're taught in the academy

01:28:47.620 of interviewing suspects, you're told to never promise them anything.

01:28:50.580 And the only thing you can say is, I'm going to talk to the U.S.

01:28:52.600 attorney all about it, because they're the ones that make the final decisions.

01:28:55.400 So this is typically what would end up going in a situation like this.

01:29:00.060 But smart on him to not talk.

01:29:03.740 Don't fall for it, guys.

01:29:04.760 Jim gave him the idea that he had not done anything wrong right from get-go.

01:29:17.300 And so being held in jail, it kind of helped him to the conclusion that maybe his dad hadn't

01:29:23.800 been as good a friend as he always let himself out to be.

01:29:27.640 I... 1.00

01:29:28.240 Damn, Eldad. 1.00

01:29:31.500 Oh, the Oregonian. 1.00

01:29:32.720 I had myself believe that I wasn't doing anything wrong.

01:29:37.860 You know, here's my hero.

01:29:40.200 He was trying to help me out.

01:29:41.980 And I still wrestle with the idea that he may or may not have manipulated me.

01:29:48.980 Nathan received five years probation from the judge, and Jim got an additional eight-year

01:29:56.980 sentence and was ultimately sent to Supermax in Florence, Colorado.

01:30:03.580 And that's the worst one.

01:30:04.760 That's where all the worst terrorists are at, et cetera.

01:30:07.300 So this guy, they gave him a chance, put him in a better prison.

01:30:09.980 He messes up, gets his son involved.

01:30:11.820 Next thing you know, he's doing more time.

01:30:13.900 His son ended up getting a slap on the wrist, you know, probably because he cooperated.

01:30:17.900 And potentially because the father went ahead and said, hey, I'll cooperate.

01:30:21.740 I'll give you a plea guilty to charge as long as you guys go leaning on my son.

01:30:25.920 So more than, and that was probably set up through an attorney.

01:30:29.580 So smart on him to not talk to the FBI agent at the time and negotiate something through

01:30:33.720 counsel.

01:30:36.980 Jim Nicholson basically said it was just a way to help out the family, but I don't think

01:30:42.420 so.

01:30:43.980 I think he just full of himself.

01:30:46.440 I mean, Jim fancied himself as being quite the spy master.

01:30:50.400 But how good a spy could Jim have been?

01:30:52.460 He's the only guy I know that ever got caught twice.

01:30:56.080 Were you surprised that Jim had used his son to contact the Russians?

01:31:00.180 Surprised?

01:31:01.020 Not really.

01:31:02.080 Further disappointed?

01:31:03.440 Yeah.

01:31:04.200 Somewhat shocked from the perspective of a father that one father could do this to his

01:31:08.040 son, but that's what desperate people do.

01:31:10.540 Do you think he loved his kids?

01:31:11.760 He loved his kids, but he loved himself more.

01:31:14.040 He's an extreme narcissist.

01:31:15.640 You know, I think he'd have to put it that way.

01:31:17.800 For the father to do this to his family, I just can't, I can't believe it.

01:31:23.640 What makes somebody do that and then use his son to continue the operation?

01:31:27.980 That's deplorable.

01:31:29.900 His whole belief system's been destroyed by his father.

01:31:33.440 I don't know how that kid deals with that.

01:31:36.360 And I, as a parent, I don't know how any person can do that to their own child.

01:31:42.100 He's forever labeled the son of his father.

01:31:44.520 That will trail him for the rest of his life.

01:31:48.980 Yep, that definitely was an L, man. 0.95

01:31:52.860 But yeah, guys, that's the documentary right there.

01:31:55.120 Hope you guys enjoyed that one.

01:31:56.600 Really interesting stuff.

01:31:57.760 You know, that Russian espionage stuff is always fun.

01:32:00.160 This is a, you know, copy of the criminal complaint for the arrest warrant or search warrant.

01:32:06.300 And, you know, this is kind of an overview on it, but this is back from like 1995 or 6.

01:32:10.580 And it goes into all the facts of the case, which, you know, we talked about and kind of had a bird's eye view with the documentary.

01:32:15.580 But if you guys are interested in reading this, I can link this below.

01:32:17.700 But here's some of the financial transactions I want to show you all that I mentioned earlier.

01:32:20.740 You guys can see he was just getting paid a bunch of money, right?

01:32:23.560 Where he was making all these payments that he couldn't necessarily explain legit, right?

01:32:30.260 Paying off bills, credit unions, etc.

01:32:33.720 So this actually, you know, piqued the FBI's interest even more so when they're doing their investigation.

01:32:39.600 Because all this money was unexplained.

01:32:41.960 And if I'm not mistaken, I don't know if the affidavit has it here.

01:32:45.900 But I think he made about $300,000 when this was all said and done.

01:32:50.040 I know that for a fact.

01:32:50.900 I'm just trying to find it in the.

01:32:53.560 The thing.

01:32:54.920 Because here it says $100,000.

01:32:56.760 But later on, they found out it was around $300,000.

01:32:59.500 Because this is when they first arrested him.

01:33:01.060 So when he actually confessed and told him how much money he made, it was a lot more than this.

01:33:05.320 So because he did a couple polygraphs, multiple debriefings, etc.

01:33:08.840 But anyway, hope you guys enjoyed that one, man.

01:33:11.660 I really enjoy this type of stuff.

01:33:13.020 So let me know if you guys do comment below.

01:33:15.760 And yeah, I'll catch you guys on the next episode of Fed It.

01:33:17.860 Like the video, subscribe.

01:33:19.500 And I'll catch you all on Sunday.

01:33:22.140 Peace.

01:33:23.560 I was a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations.

01:33:27.240 Okay, guys.

01:33:28.000 HSI.

01:33:28.580 The cases that I did mostly were human smudges.

The Debrief With MyronGainesX - January 20, 2023

The Arrest Of Highest Ranked CIA Russian Double Agent： Harold J. Nicholson

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