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Welcome to mid Rats with sal from
Commander Salamander an Eagle one from Eagle Speak

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at Seer Shore your home for a
discussion of national security issues and all things

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maritime. Welcome lord, everybody,
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works with your schedule. And let's
go ahead and dive into today's show,

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and anyone who is even remotely related
to the Navy or the National Defense Arena

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in DC and especially the media.
They know these two words, Fat Leonard,

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and that one individual he has had
a really outside impact on our Navy

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that's still not done for well over
a decade, wants things and the official

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arena started pointing in his direction.
And there's still some latest news on it

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that perhaps we'll get to later on
in the show. But to the very

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highest level of uniformed leadership, this
one individual and his business dealings at the

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Navy in the Western Pacific hasn't just
impacted the Navy as an institution, its

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reputation, its personal capital with Congress
and the American people, but also who

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has and has not made it to
the various high levels of the US Navy

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ever since then. And visiting today
to mid Rats on this topic for the

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full hour is Craig Whitlock, investigative
reporter for the Washington Post and the number

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one New York Times best selling author
of Fat Leonard, who just came out

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this year, and of course the
Afghanistan papers that we talked with him before.

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Craig, Welcome back to mid Rats. Thanks so much for having me.

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Hey, I think great, it's
great we have an author on Craig

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is I get to ask a real
easy question on my part, tell us

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what your books about? Sure?
So actually I'll give you a slightly different

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approach. I'll tell you how I
got started on this story about Fat Leonard

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who, just by way of background, he's a Malaysian citizen whose company,

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Glenn Defense Marine Asia, was a
husbanding provider with most of your listeners will

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recognize as a maritime services company that
provided supplies, tugboats, barges, anything

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that a Navy ship or sub or
terrier strike group might need if it pulled

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into port throughout Asia. But the
reason I got started in this story was

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in September of twenty thirteen, like
you said, more than ten years ago

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now, there was news out of
San Diego that the Justice Department had announced

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that it had arrested and charged this
gentleman, Leonard Francis, whose company,

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Glen Defense Marine As at that time
had about two hundred million dollars worth of

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contracts with the Navy to provide port
services. So they had arrested him on

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bribery and fraud charges in San Diego, and they had also arrested two other

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people. One was a Navy commander
named Michael Mishevitz, who was pretty well

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known in the Navy because he had
this very inspiring life story as despite his

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Polish sounding last name, he was
actually a native of Cambodia and had been

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adopted in the seventies just before the
Khmer Rouge came through Cambodia through PanAm Pen

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it took over the country and committed
genocide with a population there. He had

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been adopted by an American service member, brought to the US, went to

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the Naval Academy, and had gone
on a triumphant return to Cambodia for the

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first time as the commanding officer of
a Navy worship a destroyer. And so

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he was charged with bribery and fraud
his well. And then there was a

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third individual, an NCIS special agent
named John Beliva, was also charged with

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taking bribes. So this was pretty
unusual, right, you know, I

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didn't know who the contractor was at
that time, but you know, to

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have a Navy officer who was well
regarded be charged with bribery and an NCIS

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agent, you know, to have
a federal law enforcement agent charged with teaching

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bribes, that was pretty different.
So I was at that time. I

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was a beat reporter at the Pentagon
for the Washington Post covering the Defense Department

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in the US military, and I
was wandering through the corridors curious to know

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more about this story, and I
bumped into an acquaintance who was a Navy

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officer, and I said, do
you know anything about this guy Leonard Francis

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This this Malaysian contractor with the Navy. And the officer got a big smile

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on his face and laughed and said, oh, you mean Fat Leonard.

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And you know, my eyes got
big, because you know, as a

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reporter, you always know a good
story when you hear one, and if

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the character his name is Fat Leonard, you want to hear more. So

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I said, well, what do
you mean everybody in the Navy knows him?

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And the author said, oh,
anybody who's been out in the Western

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Pacific during their careers, which is
a good percentage of people in the Navy,

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has come across Fat Leonard. He's
this larger than life figure. He's

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huge, meaning his body type is
huge. He weighs a few hundred pounds,

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but he's this very flashy, loud, charismatic individual who was known to

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be again just this very larger than
life figure. So that certainly caught my

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interest, and I started digging into
the story for the Washington Post and long

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story short, over the next several
years, I wrote about sixty articles for

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the Post as this investigation just ballooned
in size, a number of people getting

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investigated in this corruption scandal ended up
being the most extensive corruption case in military

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history in terms of the number of
people involved. At one point, there

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were about a thousand people under investigation. That doesn't mean they all did something

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wrong, but that's how long this
case went on, how many people got

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caught up in it. And part
of this was because Leonard Francis had held

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contracts with the Navy for twenty five
years, and he had a reputation for

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throwing wild parties and giving people gifts
and throwing brides around. And so this

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case really, as you indicated earlier, for the last ten years, it's

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cast a real shadow on the Navy, but also the Justice Department and other

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parts of the national security firmament.
So it's you know, this one guy

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has has really sent you know,
these earthquake sized tremors through the Navy over

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the past decade. One of the
things I found fascinating your book, Craig,

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is that the e the same ease
with which fat Leonard was able to

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worm his way into people's lives.
You want to talk about that a little

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bit, about how what his approach
was to some of these folks. Yes,

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he says, fascinating figure. I've
been a journalist for more than thirty

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years, and he's easily the most
interesting, entertaining, compelling, repulsive person

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character I've ever come across. So
a lot of paradoxes, but one thing

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you have to remember about Leonard Francis
is he's very smart. He's very cunning,

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and a lot of people underestimate him. He was a high school dropout

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in Malaysia and actually had a felony
record for gun crimes as a young man,

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and despite that background, he ended
up becoming this indispensable partner to the

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US Navy in the Western Pacific in
terms of providing port services. So you

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have to be pretty smart to be
a high school dropout of foreign citizen and

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get to that point where the Navy's
really depending on you for a large percentage

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of its maritime operations in the fleet
area. And he had. He was

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charming, he was cunning. He
was a calm man. He knew how

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to fool people. He lied,
he cheated, but he was he really

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had an ability to study people's psyches. And he would laugh. He'd put

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his arm around people, you know, whether it's high ranking flag officers or

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enlisted people, but he'd put his
arm around them and say, you know,

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tell me, and he'd laugh,
and he'd say, what are your

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vices? What are your vices?
What are you And what he was looking

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for, you know, on the
surface that he was joking, He wanted

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to know what people's weaknesses were.
You know, who was willing to maybe

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drink a little too much, who
who liked to smoke Cuban cigars, who

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was willing to take a gift,
who was having narratal problems? And he

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was constantly on the lookout for people's
weaknesses that he could exploit in terms of

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you know, even sometimes it's their
generosity he would exploit. He knew,

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as he put it, every sailor
has a weakness and it's just a matter

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of time to Leonard would figure out
what that is and find a way to

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exploit that to his advantage. Now, obviously, not everybody in the Navy

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fell for Leonard's charms or his gifts
or his brides. Only his small percentage

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did, but it is pretty shocking
the number of people who fell for it

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over the years. And he was
very, very smart at what he did.

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You know, a lot of people
who I interviewed for the book or

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who were interviewed by federal agents all
remarked without any irony that Leonard Francis would

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have been the perfect case officer for
a foreign intelligence service. He was really

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good at getting people to let down
their guard and to slowly groom them until

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he gained their confidence, until he
could gain leverage over them so they would

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do what he wanted. And I
think what's also amazing about Leonard Glenn francis

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that as an individual and as a
character, is as he outlined over and

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over again with his patterns and how
he developed his contact, Like he said,

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like a world class intelligence operative,
high degree of emotional intelligence, he

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was able to find those weaknesses.
Is he was almost a cliche. I

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remember as a midshipman back in the
nineteen eighties, you start getting these counterintelligence

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brief that these are the things that
you need to look out for. Here

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are the patterns and almost all of
the individuals that the naval officers had come

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into play in this story. I
know they had not just top secret clearance,

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but top secret sci you go through
FBI background interviews, everybody knows what

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they're looking for. But in spite
of that, to the very highest levels,

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and maybe we'll talk on some of
the highest level individuals who even after

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retirement, he was still able to
get his claws in. They still fell

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for now. There were some officers
who did sniff it out and did avoid

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him. And you've been at the
Washington Post and have been a reporter in

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Washington, d C. I mean, this aspect of human nature is kind

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of the water at which you swim. I have to think that people pulled

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in by money, booze, ego, and prostitutes. That is kind of

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the oldest story in human kind.
But with the image that the Navy at

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least likes to have forward and early
on the book you even reviewed some of

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the central concepts of honor that going
back to the Naval Academy for those that

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went there, is imbued looking at
it from that side. As you dug

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through the years in this story and
saw more of it, how did your

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view of the Navy as an institution
develop over time. You know, that's

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a really good question. So,
like you mentioned before, I've been covering

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the Partment of Defense and the Navy
and the Pentagon since twenty ten. Before

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that, I had been a foreign
correspondent overseas, and I came back and

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I started covering the military full time
for the first time. And you know,

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like most people, of course,
you can't help be impressed by the

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caliber of people in all the armed
forces, and particularly the officer corps.

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And you know, these are really
really smart people, dedicated and you know,

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swearing oath to defend the constitution,
serve their country, right, you

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know, they sacrifice a lot to
put their country first. So you can't

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help but admire that. But at
the same time, you know, like

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all humans, people are fallible and
have weaknesses, and Leonard was very good

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at sniffing them out. But you
know, I was shocked in a lot

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of regards because there are a number
of people I wrote about in this book

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who did fall for Leonard, who
did take his gifts and ended up being

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disgraced. Who were you know,
high ranking people who I'd known at the

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Pentagon ad covered otherwise on my beat, who I uh, you know,

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was always very impressed with you know, that seemed to me these were upstanding,

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dignified people, who with a lot
of integrity, and so it was

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sort of shocked that there was this
other side of them. And I don't

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have you know, obviously there's there's
not an easy answer to that, but

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I think there are a couple elements
in play. One is that clearly there

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was a different culture in the Navy
in the Western Pacific. You'd hear a

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lot from people who would say,
you know, what happens in westpac stays

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in westpac You know, as long
as you're far away from the United States,

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far away from your family, far
away from you know, home base,

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you know that the behaviors that are
tolerated are different. You know.

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It's sort of like people saying what
happens in Vegas stays in Vegas or is

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that kind of attitude that dates back
in the Western Pacific, you know,

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many decades. So there was that
at play. And there's also, you

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know, as I described in the
book, one theme is I think after

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nine to eleven there came a sense
of entitlement among some people who had long

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military careers. They had sacrificed a
lot during the War on Terror, you

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know, long deployments away from their
families for a long time. They were

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defending their country. And so if
Leonard Francis was wanting to give them a

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fancy meal when they stopped off in
Singapore on the way back from the Persian

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Gulf after a nine months or twelve
month deployment, you know, they didn't

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see anything wrong with that. And
Leonard again, you'd just see one crack

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in the armor, and he knew
how to get his fingers in there.

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And you know, over time he
really did worm his way in the other

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element that Leonard Francis really was a
genius in figuring out This may sound obvious

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to you, but he knew that
in the military, rank means everything,

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and so if he could just be
seen, if the perception was that he

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was friendly with the commanding officers and
the flag officers, then everybody else would

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fall in mind that they would then
see this behavior as acceptable. And so

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he really worked at that. He
was studious about it and methodical, and

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he just made sure even if he
was just taking photographs of himself in the

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line. The change of command ceremony
with the admiral or you know, make

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it seem like they were friends.
He knew that carried a lot of weight

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with the rest of the fleet,
and he exposed he exploited that to the

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maximum. So over time he did
become friendly with a lot of the people

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in charge, and he came to
be seen in many senses as untouchable.

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Every once a while there were officers, usually junior ones or civilians who would

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try and blow the whistle on Leonard's
fraud and on his outrageous activities, but

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inevitably they would get squashed by Leonard's
moles and friends in high places. So

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you know he did. He had
become nearly untouchable over twenty five years.

209
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Yeah, I thought. One of
the things you touched on the book,

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but probably not as much as as
I would have, is the is the

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fact that systemically the Navy never really
knew what they were paying Leonard for some

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00:17:15.960 --> 00:17:19.319
of the services. So he was
getting away with overcharging because the steel of

213
00:17:19.359 --> 00:17:23.079
the ship might not know the local
supply officer on that ship might not know

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00:17:23.480 --> 00:17:27.960
somebody, I guess, you know, what's the usual rate for providing port

215
00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:32.599
protection and some out of the wayport
And in one case, he went way

216
00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:37.440
out of his way to deliver an
asset that everybody charged an arm and a

217
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leg for it too. So talk
about that a little bit. Talk about

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how the system itself and the fact
that Fat Leonard really knew how to play

219
00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:48.680
the system and understood it quite well, maybe better than a lot of the

220
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officers he was dealing with, allowed
him to get away with some of this

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stuff. Yeah, that's a really
good question. So, you know,

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in the nineties, when Leonard started
out getting some small husband and contracts from

223
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the Navy. You know, he
started out in Malaysia and Indonesia, and

224
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these were piecemeal contracts, and he
gradually kept getting more and more. But

225
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he recognized that as an outsider and
somebody wasn't an American, he needed people

226
00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:18.240
who spoke navy right, who's particularly
with Navy contracts. So he hired people

227
00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:26.119
who had been former Navy contracting officers
to be his advisors. And that really

228
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opened the doors for him, because
then all of a sudden, this mysterious

229
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Byzantine system, you know, he
started to he had people on his side

230
00:18:34.079 --> 00:18:40.880
who guided him through it and showed
him the weak spots, and so on

231
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one hand, he figured out the
system in black and white. On the

232
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other hand, frankly, just very
brazenly, but gradually and carefully, he

233
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started bribing people in the contracting commands
in Singapore and Yukoska and elsewhere that he

234
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would literally put these people on his
payroll even though they were supposed to be

235
00:19:00.160 --> 00:19:03.200
the ones monitoring the bill, so
it got kind of ridiculous. Every once

236
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while, there would be a supply
officer on a ship who Leonard would present

237
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:11.440
a bill during at the end of
a port visit, and this playofficer would

238
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say, this is nuts. This
is twice what we have to pay in

239
00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:17.799
this other port, and you're gouging
me. I'm not going to pay this,

240
00:19:17.960 --> 00:19:22.480
and Leonard would just smile and laugh
because he knew the custom was that

241
00:19:22.519 --> 00:19:26.039
they had to pay the bill before
they left, and that he also knew

242
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that if there was a protest lodged
with the contract and command in Singapore,

243
00:19:29.960 --> 00:19:33.240
that a lot of the people there
who were supposedly working for the Navy were

244
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actually taking bribes from Leonard, and
so they would they would always make sure

245
00:19:37.279 --> 00:19:41.640
he got paid in the end.
So over time he had moles and informants

246
00:19:41.720 --> 00:19:48.680
and people taking his bribes. Very
strategically placed throughout the Navy, both civilians

247
00:19:48.680 --> 00:19:52.759
and people in uniforms, so he
had always had people taking care of him

248
00:19:52.799 --> 00:19:56.039
on the inside. So a lot
of times, you're right, you know,

249
00:19:56.119 --> 00:19:59.000
ship captains didn't care what the bill
was. They were there to carry

250
00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:02.480
out the mission. And Leonard knew
that too, that the ship captain wasn't

251
00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:07.400
going to complain about his force protection
costs if he took the commanding officer out

252
00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:10.519
to a fancy dinner or put him
up, you know, drove him around

253
00:20:10.519 --> 00:20:14.319
town in a BMW or Mercedes.
You know that he knew a lot of

254
00:20:14.359 --> 00:20:17.880
people in the Navy. You know, cost was a secondary concern. So

255
00:20:18.279 --> 00:20:22.640
whether it was overtly breaking the law
or bribing people to make sure he could

256
00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:26.839
get paid, or just essentially inducing
people to look the other way, Leonard

257
00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:30.440
was a master at doing whatever it
took to make sure he could gouch the

258
00:20:30.519 --> 00:20:41.839
Navy. A great thing about this
book, and I know that especially for

259
00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:45.079
those that love the Navy as much
as we all do, there's a subset

260
00:20:45.119 --> 00:20:52.359
of us get it very tribalistic in
their brain stem and immediately want to jump

261
00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:56.039
to defend the institution. But interesting
thing about this story is and I don't

262
00:20:56.079 --> 00:21:03.400
know whether you've experienced this or not, is that's been a vast minority most

263
00:21:03.640 --> 00:21:11.759
individuals I know they are very sadden
and not distraught, but not shocked,

264
00:21:11.920 --> 00:21:17.039
but depressed and shocked at the same
time about this because of we have a

265
00:21:17.079 --> 00:21:22.440
great affection for an organization that really
lets you down so much. If you

266
00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:26.119
truly have affection for that, it
brings sadness more than anger. And one

267
00:21:26.119 --> 00:21:30.920
of the undertold stories about this because
power. I mean again, this is

268
00:21:30.920 --> 00:21:36.640
a story as oldest man. Power
protects itself. And there's a few things

269
00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:40.240
in the book that, in spite
of somebody who's tried to keep up with

270
00:21:40.279 --> 00:21:47.240
it over time, that was kind
of news for me. Is there is

271
00:21:47.720 --> 00:21:49.279
we used to laugh at the people
back in the Cold War, who do

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00:21:49.359 --> 00:21:55.960
criminology? Who when they would have
the Victory Day parade, who's standing next

273
00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:59.160
to Khrushchev? And what does that
tell you about power? But that's all

274
00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:02.960
related to a base human instinct.
Is those who are close to power have

275
00:22:03.240 --> 00:22:07.559
power simply by being seen with that
proximity. And back in Annapolis in twenty

276
00:22:07.599 --> 00:22:17.279
eleven, then Chief of Naval Operations
Roughhead was having his job turned over to

277
00:22:17.359 --> 00:22:22.039
the new CNO. Greenard, who
had known Leonard for a long time,

278
00:22:22.119 --> 00:22:26.039
and Leonard, who big guy,
big presence. He was right there for

279
00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:33.319
everybody to see. And they're also
not the present CNO, but the previous

280
00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:40.000
CNO. Admiral Guilday. He had
interesting note there that he had connections to

281
00:22:40.359 --> 00:22:45.079
Fat Leonard back to when he was
a desron commander and had written letters for

282
00:22:45.160 --> 00:22:49.440
him, which you outlined well.
The Navy's wonderful ability to send obsequious letters

283
00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:56.559
to people that didn't come out while
Guildeay was still on active duty. It's

284
00:22:56.640 --> 00:23:03.279
just that type of connection that gives
people a lot of protection, and he

285
00:23:03.400 --> 00:23:07.400
had his wall of protection so to
speak, that you covered pretty well.

286
00:23:07.799 --> 00:23:14.079
How often in your reporting on this
did you see that proximity of power work

287
00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:19.039
as a strong shield, even to
the point that it was well known what

288
00:23:19.160 --> 00:23:26.680
Leonard was But even after he retired, in the course of discovery, which

289
00:23:26.680 --> 00:23:32.039
is always tough if you know an
attorney, it was found where Admiral Roughhead

290
00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:34.000
sent an email to Leonard saying now
he was out, he wanted to find

291
00:23:34.039 --> 00:23:41.400
ways to make money. That's pretty
bold statement. How does that jive with

292
00:23:41.480 --> 00:23:45.000
how you've seen similar things like this, whether in industry or in government.

293
00:23:45.440 --> 00:23:51.039
Well, again, Leonard knew the
weaknesses and the system of people personally.

294
00:23:51.519 --> 00:23:55.480
He studied the system closely, and
he figured out what people might be susceptible

295
00:23:55.519 --> 00:23:59.640
to. But there is this really
remarkable scene in the book that you alluded

296
00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:03.440
to. Their September of twenty eleven, there's a change of command ceremony at

297
00:24:03.480 --> 00:24:08.920
the Naval Academy for the CNO.
Admiral Roughhead is stepping down, retiring,

298
00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:14.359
and he's going to be replaced by
Jonathan Greener, a submariner who's going to

299
00:24:14.400 --> 00:24:18.920
be the new CNO. And Admiral
Roughhead had previously been during his career,

300
00:24:18.960 --> 00:24:22.640
the commander of the Pacific Fleet,
and Admiral Greener had been the commander of

301
00:24:22.640 --> 00:24:26.119
the Seventh Fleet, so both of
them knew Leonard. It turned out that

302
00:24:26.200 --> 00:24:30.359
Admiral Roughhead was one who actually invited
Leonard to the change of command ceremony,

303
00:24:30.400 --> 00:24:33.799
and Leonard loved nothing more than to
get a VIP invitation to a change of

304
00:24:33.839 --> 00:24:38.119
command ceremony because that would give him
a chance to rub elbows. But as

305
00:24:38.119 --> 00:24:42.440
you said, to be seen with
people in power, and again he knew

306
00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:47.240
that was more important. The perception
than the reality. Even so, he

307
00:24:47.240 --> 00:24:52.039
would bring his own photographer and make
sure he got photos of himself with anybody

308
00:24:52.039 --> 00:24:55.920
who mattered, put them on what
he called his wall of fame back at

309
00:24:55.960 --> 00:25:00.440
his corporate headquarters in Singapore. But
the timing of this into command ceremony at

310
00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:06.799
the Naval Academy for the CNO in
twenty eleven was remarkable because at that point

311
00:25:07.960 --> 00:25:12.720
Leonard had been under criminal investigation by
NCIS for about eighteen months, even though

312
00:25:12.799 --> 00:25:18.720
NCIS had really fallen asleep at the
switch for most of Leonard's career. Finally

313
00:25:18.799 --> 00:25:23.119
they started realizing that the fraud was
out of control. In twenty ten,

314
00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:29.680
they'd been getting multiple complaints that they
had some real smoking guns in terms of

315
00:25:30.839 --> 00:25:37.000
excuse me, Leonard overcharging, and
so this investigation was starting to close in

316
00:25:37.160 --> 00:25:41.839
by NCIS, and the Justice Apartment
was involved, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service

317
00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:47.759
was involved, from the Pentagon,
and yet Leonard gets his VIT invitation to

318
00:25:47.799 --> 00:25:51.319
go to the CNO's change of command
ceremony, and he loves it, and

319
00:25:51.359 --> 00:25:56.039
he goes to Annapolis and he's snapping
pictures with every flag officer you can find,

320
00:25:56.079 --> 00:26:00.640
and they're smiling and talking about their
memories of parties or dinner he hosted

321
00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:03.319
for them. But to him,
this was protection, right because he knew

322
00:26:03.480 --> 00:26:07.519
NCIS was after him, He knew
he was under investigation, but he wasn't

323
00:26:07.559 --> 00:26:12.000
afraid to go to Annapolis. He
wasn't afraid to mingle with the top leadership

324
00:26:12.039 --> 00:26:17.480
of the Navy because he thought they
would protect him. And to the day

325
00:26:17.519 --> 00:26:22.400
he was arrested two years later,
he thought that some four star or some

326
00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:26.759
three star would intervene with the Justice
Department and say, you need to let

327
00:26:26.759 --> 00:26:32.119
this man go. He's too important
to the Navy. And so to this

328
00:26:32.200 --> 00:26:36.079
day, I think he's mystified that
he wasn't let off the hook by one

329
00:26:36.079 --> 00:26:41.119
of his admiral friends intervening. So
for years that did work and did offer

330
00:26:41.160 --> 00:26:45.200
a protection till the Justice Department got
involved. But you know, he thought

331
00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:49.000
this was his inoculation, as it
were, this proximity to power would protect

332
00:26:49.039 --> 00:26:55.000
his criminal enterprise. Ye. I
think that one of the things that Sale

333
00:26:55.039 --> 00:26:57.519
touched on to that. One of
the things he did, in addition to

334
00:26:57.559 --> 00:27:00.960
seeking up people with a lot of
wick this is he was looking at people

335
00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:07.039
who were getting ready to retire and
we're looking for that new new position.

336
00:27:07.200 --> 00:27:11.720
So he actually hired a number of
guys or promised to hire a number of

337
00:27:11.720 --> 00:27:12.880
people. Then as soon as you
get off active duty, of course,

338
00:27:12.880 --> 00:27:19.559
I have a place for you here, which helped him intertwine himself in the

339
00:27:19.599 --> 00:27:23.119
in the Navy's hierarchy and prompted a
lot of those people to do things they

340
00:27:23.160 --> 00:27:26.759
shouldn't have done. Now that were
exceptions there. The guy was a captain

341
00:27:27.240 --> 00:27:32.200
Mouse, right, James Moss.
That's right. Yeah, talk about him

342
00:27:32.200 --> 00:27:34.000
a little bit and what happened to
him, because I think that's kind of

343
00:27:34.039 --> 00:27:38.200
an interesting example of somebody who really
didn't succumb to the full under treatment.

344
00:27:38.839 --> 00:27:45.640
That's right. So Jim Moss is
a supply Corps officer, spent probably thirty

345
00:27:45.720 --> 00:27:51.000
years in uniform. He had served
as supply offficer for the USS Independent Kitty

346
00:27:51.079 --> 00:27:53.200
Hawk Independence. You know, he
spent a lot of time out in the

347
00:27:53.240 --> 00:27:59.000
Pacific, and he actually clashed with
Leonard when he was a supply officer.

348
00:27:59.079 --> 00:28:02.839
Moss was pretty by the book,
and Leonard would try and kempt him with

349
00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:06.599
little gifts, you know, even
just like you know, pewter mugs when

350
00:28:06.640 --> 00:28:11.720
he'd go to Malaysia dinner and Moss
would always you know, send it right

351
00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:15.039
back. And but at one point
when Moss was getting ready to retire,

352
00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:18.559
Leonard had heard about it and wanted
to hire him to work as a vice

353
00:28:18.640 --> 00:28:22.400
president for his company in Singapore because
he thought Moss had a good reputation in

354
00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:27.119
the evy and he he wanted him
to help expand his get more contracts.

355
00:28:27.119 --> 00:28:33.119
And so he offered Moss a pretty
well paying job and country club membership in

356
00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:38.279
Singapore and you know, tuition for
his son, and Moss accepted, and

357
00:28:40.160 --> 00:28:45.519
he lasted only about nine months the
global recession hit. Moscot laid off and

358
00:28:45.920 --> 00:28:49.039
Moss said he was only you know, he was kind of on the company

359
00:28:49.519 --> 00:28:53.559
as on paper, that he was
there as a phase for his reputation.

360
00:28:53.759 --> 00:28:59.160
That Leonard didn't involve him in any
of the operations and certainly none of the

361
00:28:59.200 --> 00:29:03.319
fraud. That he kind of left
Moss sit in his office and most days

362
00:29:03.359 --> 00:29:07.799
he'd walk around the docks at Singapore
nothing to do. But in any event,

363
00:29:08.119 --> 00:29:12.720
Mosco got laid off and he needed
a job, and Pacific Fleet was

364
00:29:12.839 --> 00:29:19.160
hiring, and so he went there
to as a civilian to help them ironically

365
00:29:19.720 --> 00:29:26.920
minimize their husbanding costs because specific Fleet
had noticed that the costs for resupply and

366
00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:30.319
for visiting ports, reports services had
gone through the roof. There was a

367
00:29:30.359 --> 00:29:34.680
recession, so the Navy needed to
watch its budgets a lot more closely.

368
00:29:34.720 --> 00:29:41.359
So Moss actually headed up this effort
for Pacific Fleet, who essentially cracked down

369
00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:45.279
on husbanding costs. And this drove
Leonard up a wall because Moss knew his

370
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:51.440
stuff, and Moss knew his company, and so he tried constantly to get

371
00:29:51.480 --> 00:29:56.680
Moss fired. And Leonard would go
to his flag officer friends, including three

372
00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:00.160
and four star officers, some still
on active duty, were tired to try

373
00:30:00.200 --> 00:30:06.160
and get Moss fired for conflict of
interest. He'd make stuff up, and

374
00:30:06.240 --> 00:30:08.200
you know, Mauston realized this was
all going on, but he was the

375
00:30:08.200 --> 00:30:15.240
one person in the Navy as a
civilian who actually had an effect on Leonard

376
00:30:15.279 --> 00:30:18.119
in terms of making it more difficult
for him to gouge the Navy. So,

377
00:30:18.240 --> 00:30:23.759
even while Leonard was under investigation by
NCIS for fraud, Moss was heading

378
00:30:23.799 --> 00:30:30.839
up this effort that was for Pacific
Fleet that was slowly constricting Navy Leonard's ability

379
00:30:30.240 --> 00:30:33.720
to overbill the Navy, you know, making it so that he could only

380
00:30:33.839 --> 00:30:38.440
charge for certain kind of tug boats. That you know, all the contract

381
00:30:38.480 --> 00:30:42.880
line items had to be adhered to, that he couldn't overcharge for sewage.

382
00:30:44.079 --> 00:30:48.200
That you know, the force protection
had to be done under more careful circumstances.

383
00:30:48.279 --> 00:30:52.839
That standardizing a lot more of the
operations, essentially closing all the loopholes

384
00:30:52.920 --> 00:30:57.599
Leonard had exploited or created over the
years. So all of that effort was

385
00:30:57.640 --> 00:31:03.599
going on while while was under criminal
investigation. And you know, Moss is

386
00:31:03.640 --> 00:31:07.319
really one of the heroes in the
book, one of the few people in

387
00:31:07.359 --> 00:31:14.480
the Navy who was successfully able to
take on Leonard. Yeah, I agree.

388
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:21.039
I mean there's almost there's almost a
book on his his battle and into

389
00:31:21.079 --> 00:31:26.400
itself. It really is a fascinating
story about his But there are there are

390
00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:32.599
three individuals though. That one is
I wouldn't say it's comical in a as

391
00:31:32.599 --> 00:31:34.960
you said earlier on in the show, what happens in Westpac stays in Westpac

392
00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:41.519
point of view. But there are
two other individuals who I think we're operating

393
00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:48.440
in a much darker arena. One
legally and the other one I would argue

394
00:31:48.799 --> 00:31:55.839
ethically, morally and probably legally as
well. Captain Newland, I think his

395
00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:04.039
story is is a good data point
on how those those simple gifts to encourage

396
00:32:04.039 --> 00:32:09.839
people can play out. But you
also had the individual from Ncis Bellevue and

397
00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:17.319
his ghost writer Breslau, that operated
at a very different level of support that

398
00:32:19.279 --> 00:32:23.079
and I found in many ways not
being pathetic characters, but they're actually kind

399
00:32:23.119 --> 00:32:29.559
of frightening characters on what they were
performing. Yeah, So those are three

400
00:32:29.680 --> 00:32:31.839
really good characters that talked about a
little more detail because they do kind of

401
00:32:31.920 --> 00:32:39.200
run the gamut on people that Leonard
saw his opportunities to get what he wanted.

402
00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:44.039
And I'll take each of them in
turn. So Captain David Newlan was

403
00:32:44.079 --> 00:32:47.279
an aviator who became, for the
end of his career, the chief of

404
00:32:47.359 --> 00:32:51.880
Staff at the seventh Fleet, which
is very powerful position. You know,

405
00:32:52.200 --> 00:32:55.519
as you all know, the Admiral
the three star, who's the commanding officer

406
00:32:55.559 --> 00:33:00.480
of the seventh Fleet is often on
travel, not on the flagship the Blue

407
00:33:00.559 --> 00:33:04.839
Ridge, and so in effect the
chief of Staff is running day to day

408
00:33:04.880 --> 00:33:08.599
operations for the seventh Fleet and Newland. Though as he came to the seventh

409
00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:15.559
Fleet he sort of sensed that his
career was hitting an end. He wasn't

410
00:33:15.599 --> 00:33:19.079
going to be selected for flag.
He kind of read the writing on the

411
00:33:19.119 --> 00:33:23.440
wall, and so he had heard
about Leonard and he decided he was very

412
00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:28.400
blunt about this. When he was
interviewed years later by federal agents, he

413
00:33:28.440 --> 00:33:32.440
said, you know, I wanted
to take advantage of Leonard's hospitality. Newlan

414
00:33:32.599 --> 00:33:38.119
loved wine in Champagne, and he
loved dinner parties, and he loved living

415
00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:44.319
the high life. And Leonard immediately
seized on this and had been trying for

416
00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:50.079
years to really ingratiate himself with the
Seventh Fleet staff and infiltrate it. And

417
00:33:50.400 --> 00:33:52.400
Newlan let him do it. You
know. Newlan led him even though he

418
00:33:52.480 --> 00:33:58.599
knew this was unethical, that he
shouldn't be attending these parties, and you

419
00:33:58.640 --> 00:34:01.079
know, he really let Leonard go
over the top. Newland one of the

420
00:34:01.119 --> 00:34:05.960
best scenes in the book. And
this was described by another auser on the

421
00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:09.079
sim Fleet staff. As Leonard was
hosting one of his patented dinner parties that

422
00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:15.000
cost several hundred dollars, a person
at a restaurant called John a Michelin starred

423
00:34:15.039 --> 00:34:20.280
restaurant in Singapore that's in one of
the Polish buildings in Singapore, and they

424
00:34:20.320 --> 00:34:25.119
were having cocktails on the helipad overlooking
the Strait of Malacca, and Leonard knew

425
00:34:25.159 --> 00:34:30.480
that Newlan had a real taste for
fine champagne. So he first started out

426
00:34:30.559 --> 00:34:35.960
with waiters bringing out, you know, all sorts of don peregnon for people

427
00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:40.360
to sample, and then part way
through the cocktails, he'd bring the waiters

428
00:34:40.360 --> 00:34:45.880
bring out Christall and Newlan, you
know, is making a show of of

429
00:34:46.039 --> 00:34:49.760
oh, you know, which which
should I which do I prefer? More

430
00:34:49.800 --> 00:34:52.440
so, he didn't even finish his
glass of don peregnon. He made a

431
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:57.760
show of dumping it over the side
of the skyscraper, like that's the bad

432
00:34:57.800 --> 00:35:01.559
stuff. I'm here for the crystall
that Leonard's providing. So he had this

433
00:35:01.639 --> 00:35:05.519
real you know, I mean,
it's greed right, and he thought it

434
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:10.360
was funny. And Leonard was his
sugar daddy in a sense that would every

435
00:35:10.360 --> 00:35:15.679
time the Blue Ridge would pull into
port, Leonard was there to host a

436
00:35:15.679 --> 00:35:20.039
fancy dinner party with as much champagne
as Newlan wanted to drink, and in

437
00:35:20.199 --> 00:35:24.119
response, he gave Leonard the run
of the ship, and under Newlan's watch

438
00:35:24.199 --> 00:35:30.960
is when Leonard first started persuading people
on Newlan's staff to weaken classified information,

439
00:35:31.880 --> 00:35:36.639
primarily ship schedules for up to you
know, up to a year in advance,

440
00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:42.840
and so this was Newlan's greed enabled
Leonard to make that breakthrough to infiltrate

441
00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:46.599
the seven Fleet staff on a consistent
basis. And by the time he got

442
00:35:46.599 --> 00:35:50.519
his hooks into the staff, he
kind of you know, every time there

443
00:35:50.559 --> 00:35:53.159
was turnover in different positions, he'd
get his hooks into the next person.

444
00:35:53.239 --> 00:36:00.000
The people who were taking his bries
or his classified information would recruit their replace

445
00:36:00.840 --> 00:36:04.880
to work for Leonard as well.
So it was kind of incredible how Leonard

446
00:36:04.960 --> 00:36:08.800
was able to persist in his informants
and moles. He'd get certain people to

447
00:36:08.880 --> 00:36:16.639
recruit their replacements. You mentioned two
other people, NCIS agent John Bellavo remarkably,

448
00:36:16.760 --> 00:36:22.480
you know, he is one of
the unbelievable stories in terms of somebody

449
00:36:22.840 --> 00:36:28.320
betraying their oath of office, betraying
their mission as a federal law enforcement officer.

450
00:36:29.079 --> 00:36:31.400
Bellevoux in fact, had been one
of the Special Agents of the Year

451
00:36:31.639 --> 00:36:37.599
in NCIS as a counter terrorism agent
in Southeast Asia. And yet this was

452
00:36:37.639 --> 00:36:43.960
one of these people with the weaknesses
that Leonard had spotted. He had psychological

453
00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:47.440
problems, he drank too much,
and he had a problem meeting women,

454
00:36:47.559 --> 00:36:52.880
believe it or not. And Leonard
seized on all those things and really groomed

455
00:36:52.960 --> 00:36:58.400
him as a friend, as an
informant, And by the end, Bellevoux

456
00:36:58.519 --> 00:37:04.039
was leaking Leonard all the NCIS case
files. So every time NCIS would interview

457
00:37:04.079 --> 00:37:09.519
a witness doing your criminal investigation into
Leonard's company, Bellevo would leak that information.

458
00:37:09.639 --> 00:37:14.440
He'd leaked the statements, he'd leaked
the witness reports, He'd leak it

459
00:37:14.440 --> 00:37:16.960
all to Leonard. So Leonard could
always stay his step ahead of the investigation,

460
00:37:17.480 --> 00:37:22.800
so he was able to not just
recruit people in uniform till we ca

461
00:37:22.880 --> 00:37:28.159
him classified information or help him galuge. The Navy actually had bribed the federal

462
00:37:28.239 --> 00:37:34.079
law enforcement officer to give him the
case files. That essentially made it extraordinarily

463
00:37:34.119 --> 00:37:38.320
difficult for a number of years for
law enforcement to catch Leonard in the act.

464
00:37:39.039 --> 00:37:44.079
The third person you mentioned was a
Navy captain named Jeff Breslo, and

465
00:37:44.119 --> 00:37:50.599
he was the head of public affairs
at Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. And amazingly

466
00:37:50.679 --> 00:37:55.480
enough, Leonard again he knew he
needed certain people with certain skills within the

467
00:37:55.559 --> 00:38:00.599
Navy to work for him. And
sometimes he'd hire contracting off series be on

468
00:38:00.639 --> 00:38:06.039
his payroll, some high supply officers. This is point in about twenty twelve

469
00:38:06.119 --> 00:38:09.840
twenty thirteen, he needed somebody to
teach him how to buddy up to admiralsmore

470
00:38:09.960 --> 00:38:15.320
to offer protection from these criminal investigations. So he literally put Jeff Breslaw,

471
00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:20.880
who was still on active duty as
the Director of Public Affairs, on his

472
00:38:20.920 --> 00:38:27.400
payroll. He was giving him cash
payments of up to about sixty thousand dollars,

473
00:38:27.480 --> 00:38:31.239
who essentially be his ghostwriter. So
anytime Leonard wanted to draft an email

474
00:38:31.719 --> 00:38:37.000
or a PowerPoint presentation, or wanted
to approach a flag officer about a meeting,

475
00:38:37.400 --> 00:38:43.159
Breslau would be his ghostwriter, would
advise him on his talking points,

476
00:38:43.440 --> 00:38:45.599
how to phrase the email, how
to write fank you notes. And this

477
00:38:45.719 --> 00:38:52.360
is particularly invaluable for Leonard while he
was facing this crackdown on cost cutting by

478
00:38:52.440 --> 00:38:57.360
Jim Moss that had been led at
Pacific Fleet. Breslau was essentially working the

479
00:38:57.400 --> 00:39:02.079
other side of the lysle helping Leonard
fend off Jim Moss. So to step

480
00:39:02.119 --> 00:39:07.239
back a second to paint this picture
at Pacific Fleet. On one hand,

481
00:39:07.239 --> 00:39:12.239
you have Jim Moss, who's a
retired captain who's heading up this cost cutting

482
00:39:12.280 --> 00:39:16.599
crackdown on Leonard's company that's really threatening
his bottom line. And Leonard goes turns

483
00:39:16.599 --> 00:39:22.360
around and hires the active duty director
of public Affairs to try and help him

484
00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:27.880
squash Jim Moss. So not only
is Breslau doing something which is against the

485
00:39:27.960 --> 00:39:31.000
law, real conflict of interest by
working well on active duty for a Navy

486
00:39:31.039 --> 00:39:37.320
contractor, he's essentially betraying his shipmate
Jim Moss by trying to get him fired

487
00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:40.800
helping Leonard do that. And to
me, that was one of the most

488
00:39:40.840 --> 00:39:46.800
striking acts of disloyalty throughout the whole
book that it was impossible for me to

489
00:39:46.840 --> 00:39:51.880
imagine that you would why you would
think it would be okay to take sixty

490
00:39:51.960 --> 00:39:58.199
thousand dollars from a defense contractor while
you're on active duty to work for them,

491
00:39:58.760 --> 00:40:01.639
essentially to help it being the bud
in effort to make Leonard followed the

492
00:40:01.719 --> 00:40:09.440
law. So the juxtaposition there is
really jarring and bothers them. Yeah.

493
00:40:09.639 --> 00:40:15.199
The other thing I found kind of
interesting was that that the Navy jagged people

494
00:40:15.360 --> 00:40:20.840
did not cover them cover themselves with
glory. They would they would tell the

495
00:40:20.880 --> 00:40:25.159
admirals and the captains and everything that
that you could accept gifts up to a

496
00:40:25.199 --> 00:40:30.239
certain level. I think that the
rule is twenty to fifty twenty dollars single

497
00:40:30.280 --> 00:40:35.840
gift in a max of fifty per
year, and that included these elaborate dinners

498
00:40:35.840 --> 00:40:39.639
and stuff. But the way it
was phrased, the talk about the way

499
00:40:39.679 --> 00:40:46.960
that the senior people treated that limitation
on on on how they how Leonard was

500
00:40:47.000 --> 00:40:52.960
able to continue these incredibly expensive dinners
with menus that I can't even pronounce eighty

501
00:40:53.000 --> 00:40:58.400
percent of the words on that's right, me too. And these dinners and

502
00:40:58.440 --> 00:41:01.000
their menus in the book produce some
Leonard had kept them over the years,

503
00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:05.800
and there were these six or seven
or eight course meals with you know,

504
00:41:05.960 --> 00:41:10.679
flaw gras, lobster thermidor and and
you know Kobe beef this and Kobe beef

505
00:41:10.719 --> 00:41:15.719
fat, and oysters, Rockefeller,
you name it, and you know,

506
00:41:15.760 --> 00:41:19.599
all sorts of wines and champagne I'd
never heard of before. But you know,

507
00:41:19.679 --> 00:41:22.800
they all knew this violated the rule
that everybody had been taught that you

508
00:41:22.840 --> 00:41:28.719
don't accept gifts of more than twenty
dollars from a contractor. And not worth

509
00:41:28.719 --> 00:41:31.639
more than fifty dollars in the course
of a year. And so, but

510
00:41:31.719 --> 00:41:35.480
the way they would get around it
is, you know, if there was

511
00:41:35.519 --> 00:41:39.239
an admiral from a strike group or
commanding offic service ship, they you know,

512
00:41:39.320 --> 00:41:43.920
they knew that the meal was going
to cost more than that, even

513
00:41:43.960 --> 00:41:46.199
though Leonard didn't tell them how much. But they would they would go to

514
00:41:46.239 --> 00:41:50.800
the jag officer, their ethics advisor
and say, you know, I wanted

515
00:41:50.800 --> 00:41:52.960
to go. I got this invitation
this dinner, and I'd like to go.

516
00:41:53.159 --> 00:41:57.519
Is it okay? Right? But
the implication was, you know,

517
00:41:57.639 --> 00:42:00.920
find a way to make this legal
for me, give me some cover.

518
00:42:00.639 --> 00:42:05.039
So Leonard would often work this out. You know, he knew how to

519
00:42:05.079 --> 00:42:07.239
work the system too, and he'd
say, okay, sure, the dinner

520
00:42:07.320 --> 00:42:12.079
is going to cost you know,
fifty dollars a person, and you can

521
00:42:12.159 --> 00:42:15.559
reimburse me, right, So that
was the one legal way to do it.

522
00:42:15.639 --> 00:42:19.559
So you had a number of strike
groups. This was the common way

523
00:42:19.639 --> 00:42:22.920
they knew it was. It was
a fiction, a fraud. But they

524
00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:25.480
would say they gave Leonard fifty dollars
and a lot of times they didn't even

525
00:42:25.519 --> 00:42:28.920
bother. You give enough, But
that was the story. That oh,

526
00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:31.559
we paid for our share of the
dinner. It was fifty bucks ahead,

527
00:42:31.639 --> 00:42:37.639
even though Leonard actually would it would
be five hundred bucks ahead or eight hundred

528
00:42:37.679 --> 00:42:43.920
dollars ahead. And the JAG would
bless this arrangement, knowing that you know,

529
00:42:44.039 --> 00:42:47.320
his boss or her boss, the
the strike group commander, the ship

530
00:42:47.360 --> 00:42:52.119
captain wanted to go to the dinner
and didn't want to alienate the boss,

531
00:42:52.159 --> 00:42:55.519
so say well, okay, that
looks okay to me. Other times,

532
00:42:55.599 --> 00:43:00.960
jagauscars just didn't look into it very
very closely. They did invited to the

533
00:43:00.039 --> 00:43:04.719
dinners, but you know, they
often found a way to make it happen.

534
00:43:04.760 --> 00:43:08.599
One other trick Leonard had was he
again he knew how to get people

535
00:43:08.599 --> 00:43:13.199
on the inside to tell him how
to speak navy. So there was one

536
00:43:13.719 --> 00:43:17.320
episode where he wanted to host this
fantabulous party in Hong Kong that he called

537
00:43:17.320 --> 00:43:23.840
a Christmas cheer party for officers from
the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group.

538
00:43:24.519 --> 00:43:30.360
So Leonard sent a note to the
JAG that said, oh, here's my

539
00:43:30.519 --> 00:43:37.119
invitation. It's going to be a
quote unquote widely attended gathering and under the

540
00:43:37.199 --> 00:43:43.199
regulations Navy regulations and federal regulations.
It's okay to let people attend a widely

541
00:43:43.199 --> 00:43:47.440
attended gathering if it costs more than
twenty bucks. Ahead, as long as

542
00:43:47.519 --> 00:43:53.159
there's a cross section of people from
all parts of society with different interests,

543
00:43:53.159 --> 00:43:57.719
and civilians and military, and you
know, as long as it's not just

544
00:43:57.760 --> 00:44:00.719
a defense contractor trying to buy you
off. Right. So Leonard knew this

545
00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:04.800
and he worded it that way.
So the Jag was like, well,

546
00:44:05.360 --> 00:44:08.840
you know, that sounds okay to
me. And yet when the Strike Group

547
00:44:08.920 --> 00:44:14.159
officers showed up to this party,
it was you know, it was them,

548
00:44:14.360 --> 00:44:17.440
it was Leonard, people from Leonard's
company, and the only cross section

549
00:44:17.519 --> 00:44:24.920
of society were several young women dressed
up as Santa's elves and skimpily dressed costumes

550
00:44:24.920 --> 00:44:30.000
who were clearly prostitutes. So you
know, this idea that it was a

551
00:44:30.039 --> 00:44:35.440
widely attended gathering with all sorts of
people from society was nonsense. But Leonard

552
00:44:35.559 --> 00:44:37.519
just knew what he had to do
to get the Jags blessing every time,

553
00:44:38.199 --> 00:44:43.239
and you know it usually worked.
But again, the Jags afterward, at

554
00:44:43.239 --> 00:44:46.519
that party, it was remarkable they
the Jags saw the young women in the

555
00:44:46.559 --> 00:44:52.119
Santa's outfits taking pictures right, and
that flipped them out. It's like,

556
00:44:52.199 --> 00:44:57.320
so they see the women sitting on
the laps of officers. You know,

557
00:44:57.679 --> 00:45:01.840
it's clear that this was potential blackmail
material, or the minimum, potentially embarrassing.

558
00:45:01.920 --> 00:45:07.840
So the jags ran around trying to
grab the cameras from the women,

559
00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:12.000
worried that this would come back to
haunt them. But yet afterward, you

560
00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:15.000
know, Leonard got what he wanted. These people came to his dinner party,

561
00:45:15.039 --> 00:45:17.159
they had a great time, and
nobody's not in trouble for it.

562
00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:22.360
When I was reading that part of
the book, I was reminded. Last

563
00:45:22.360 --> 00:45:24.960
week I listened to one of the
episodes one of my podcasts, History of

564
00:45:24.960 --> 00:45:30.280
the Germans podcast. I'd recommend it
to everybody. The guy who hosts the

565
00:45:30.320 --> 00:45:35.960
podcast was talking about the fourteenth century
one of the Avenue and Pope's Pope John

566
00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:39.760
the twenty second, who was a
cannon lawyer before he became pope. And

567
00:45:40.559 --> 00:45:43.880
I think my co host will appreciate
this. He said, there are three

568
00:45:43.880 --> 00:45:47.760
types of lawyers. There are bad
lawyers, there are good lawyers, and

569
00:45:47.800 --> 00:45:53.280
there are clever lawyers and the uh
there are a lot of the Jags didn't

570
00:45:53.280 --> 00:45:57.880
look like very good lawyers, but
they were kind of clever lawyers. I

571
00:45:57.920 --> 00:46:01.039
wanted to bring on another set of
character in this story that I want to

572
00:46:01.039 --> 00:46:07.039
give you credit for it, because
he fleshed them out. You know,

573
00:46:07.760 --> 00:46:12.360
Mike Mikoltt's mispronounce his last name.
His wife. For those that have kept

574
00:46:12.440 --> 00:46:15.480
up a story, they're familiar with
her role in helping kind of break this

575
00:46:15.599 --> 00:46:23.320
open. But Leonard knew that it
wasn't just the vanity and the desires of

576
00:46:23.360 --> 00:46:29.679
the senior leaders he had to cultivate, but he developed kind of a secret

577
00:46:29.719 --> 00:46:34.400
weapon that he used the wives as
well. Talk a little bit about how

578
00:46:34.400 --> 00:46:38.880
he cultivated wives as another way for
him to leverage influence because that as well

579
00:46:38.920 --> 00:46:44.719
as right out of counterintelligence one on
one it is. And Leonard, again,

580
00:46:44.840 --> 00:46:49.199
he was really clever about this that
he knew that if he could get

581
00:46:49.239 --> 00:46:52.639
the spouses on board, then he
was really set right, you know.

582
00:46:52.760 --> 00:46:57.239
But that's so hard to target because
a lot of Navy spouses when they heard

583
00:46:57.280 --> 00:47:01.199
of Leonard or saw him, they
saw him as this you know, fleasy

584
00:47:01.320 --> 00:47:06.960
character, right and not somebody they
wanted to hang around. And Leonard,

585
00:47:07.400 --> 00:47:10.400
you know, had young women on
his on his arm. We reputation your

586
00:47:10.559 --> 00:47:15.079
having a lot of prostitutes, So
if your navy spouse, it's a little

587
00:47:15.119 --> 00:47:21.400
harder to appeal to the senses.
But Leonard was really good, he was

588
00:47:21.480 --> 00:47:25.400
really charming, and so he would
target specific navy spouses by you know,

589
00:47:25.559 --> 00:47:31.519
sometimes he'd have dinner parties with prostitutes
presents if there were only only male male

590
00:47:31.639 --> 00:47:35.800
guests. But other times, you
know, there would be spouses would want

591
00:47:35.840 --> 00:47:38.920
to, you know, come into
port to visit their their their their husbands,

592
00:47:39.360 --> 00:47:44.119
you know, hadn't seen him for
weeks or months, and so Leonard

593
00:47:44.119 --> 00:47:47.719
would throw a fabulous dinner party and
invite the spouses too, and show them

594
00:47:47.760 --> 00:47:52.400
a good time, and he would
give them bouquets of flowers and chocolates.

595
00:47:52.519 --> 00:47:58.960
But he'd also study them and he'd
keep notes. He he studied the color

596
00:47:59.039 --> 00:48:02.719
scheme of the dresses they wore.
He knew where they were from. He

597
00:48:02.840 --> 00:48:07.440
was very good at remembering details.
And so the next time he saw them,

598
00:48:07.519 --> 00:48:13.119
he'd bring a gift, right,
and he was very good about giving

599
00:48:13.519 --> 00:48:21.559
Gucci handbags and Louis Vuitton paraphernalia.
And he'd wait and see who would take

600
00:48:21.599 --> 00:48:25.679
this sort of thing, and Inevitably
he found some spouses who were greedy and

601
00:48:25.960 --> 00:48:31.519
entitled, and to Leonard this was
perfect right. You know, he particularly

602
00:48:31.559 --> 00:48:36.719
had a friendship with a woman named
Carol Laussman, whose husband, Captain David

603
00:48:36.760 --> 00:48:40.679
Lousman, had been Commanding officer of
the USS Blue Ridge, a seventh Fleet

604
00:48:40.719 --> 00:48:45.800
flagship, and later was commanding officer
of the USS George Washington, the aircraft

605
00:48:45.840 --> 00:48:51.039
carrier, and he had spent several
years in the Western Pacific, and so

606
00:48:51.159 --> 00:48:57.039
at his wife and Leonard would make
sure that his staff took Carol Lusman shopping

607
00:48:57.119 --> 00:49:01.199
out to play golf, put her
up in the Shangri Lau hotel and the

608
00:49:01.199 --> 00:49:07.400
fancy suites, and so they became
very very good friends. And this enabled

609
00:49:07.480 --> 00:49:12.159
Leonard again made it easier for him
to remain buddies with her husband, but

610
00:49:12.320 --> 00:49:16.239
also with the other Navy spouses,
because you know, just like Leonard knew

611
00:49:16.280 --> 00:49:22.239
that rank made everything to people in
uniform, it also meant everything to Navy

612
00:49:22.280 --> 00:49:25.280
spouses. As you all know that
junior officers would take their spouses, would

613
00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:30.519
take their cues from the senior officers
spouses, and so Leonard was really good

614
00:49:30.599 --> 00:49:35.599
at playing both sides of the aisle
in that regard that he had a number

615
00:49:35.639 --> 00:49:40.679
of Navy spouses who who also let
Leonard entertain them with these ridiculous dinners and

616
00:49:40.719 --> 00:49:46.000
gifts and handbags, you know.
And there was one interesting commentary in my

617
00:49:46.079 --> 00:49:50.760
book. There was a Navy Admiral
J. R. Hayley, who was

618
00:49:50.800 --> 00:49:54.480
a two star eventually, and he
had overseen one of the task forces out

619
00:49:54.480 --> 00:49:59.760
there as the commanding officer of the
George Washington Carrier Strike Group, and he

620
00:49:59.920 --> 00:50:04.920
was interviewed, interrogated really by federal
agents after Leonard's arrest, and they were

621
00:50:04.960 --> 00:50:09.239
asking him because Leonard had given gifts
to Admiral Haley's wife had given her fancy

622
00:50:09.280 --> 00:50:15.119
perfume and a Gucci handbag, and
they went to dinner a lot and they

623
00:50:15.159 --> 00:50:17.199
asked, Haley, you know,
what was it about your wife and Leonard?

624
00:50:17.320 --> 00:50:22.480
Right? You know, how did
fat Leonard and enchant your wife?

625
00:50:22.639 --> 00:50:27.199
And Haley kind of laughed and said
that the spouses in a way, at

626
00:50:27.280 --> 00:50:30.199
first they felt sorry for Leonard because
he was so overweight, right, they

627
00:50:30.679 --> 00:50:35.199
kind of felt sorry for him,
but they were also intrigued that he always

628
00:50:35.199 --> 00:50:37.800
had these beautiful women on his arm, and they were fascinated by him,

629
00:50:37.800 --> 00:50:43.679
and he was very charming. So
you know, he played on these sympathies,

630
00:50:43.760 --> 00:50:46.800
even with the spouses, and so
we joke about his name fat Leonard.

631
00:50:47.239 --> 00:50:52.199
But you know, in a way, Leonard played that his obesity to

632
00:50:52.199 --> 00:50:54.519
put it, frankly, to his
advantage whenever he could, and even with

633
00:50:54.599 --> 00:51:02.880
his spouses sometimes that helped him make
inroads. Yeah, I think his rise

634
00:51:02.960 --> 00:51:07.280
we've talked about. Let's talk about
the crash. Let's talk about what finally

635
00:51:07.280 --> 00:51:15.119
got, if it's ever going to
end, what finally got Leonard Francis into

636
00:51:15.159 --> 00:51:20.440
the hands of the of the federal
authorities. Sure. So Leonard again,

637
00:51:20.519 --> 00:51:22.920
he's greedy too, right. You
know, he knows that NCIS has been

638
00:51:23.000 --> 00:51:28.960
chasing him. He knows there's active
investigations because he's got a dirty n CIS

639
00:51:29.039 --> 00:51:34.280
agent on his payroll feeding him all
this information. But Leonard's feeling, you

640
00:51:34.280 --> 00:51:38.119
know, above the law. He's
feeling protected by the two stars, three

641
00:51:38.119 --> 00:51:43.480
stars, and four stars throughout the
Navy. And so he gets an invitation

642
00:51:43.800 --> 00:51:47.719
to go to a change of command
ceremony in San Diego for the Spy Corps

643
00:51:49.400 --> 00:51:53.440
command there. And so Leonard,
even though he knows under a criminal investigation,

644
00:51:53.960 --> 00:51:58.480
you know, most people would want
to stay away from US soil they

645
00:51:58.559 --> 00:52:02.000
might get arrested. Leonard it's feeling
very cocky, and so he goes to

646
00:52:02.079 --> 00:52:07.320
this change of command ceremony, But
in fact it is a trap that at

647
00:52:07.360 --> 00:52:12.960
that point in twenty thirteen, NCIS
had belatedly learned that one of its own

648
00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:17.599
agents had been feeding Leonard information,
so they put in some false information in

649
00:52:17.639 --> 00:52:22.559
the criminal case file saying that the
cases had been declined by prosecutors. There

650
00:52:22.639 --> 00:52:27.079
wasn't enough evidence. They probably you
have to close up the investigations. So

651
00:52:27.599 --> 00:52:30.679
Leonard was thinking he was off the
hook, so he decided to go to

652
00:52:30.760 --> 00:52:35.360
San Diego. And as soon as
he touches down at Los Angeles Airport,

653
00:52:35.559 --> 00:52:40.079
and there's a team of dozens of
federal agents from NCIS and the Defense Criminal

654
00:52:40.079 --> 00:52:45.039
Investigative Service who were tailing him as
he goes down to San Diego. He

655
00:52:45.079 --> 00:52:51.119
spends a couple of days there and
in the Marriott Hotel, they know they

656
00:52:51.119 --> 00:52:53.639
finally nabbed him. You know,
they arrest him, they interrogated him.

657
00:52:53.960 --> 00:53:00.159
They've got it all on audio tape, and so that's his fall. But

658
00:53:00.519 --> 00:53:04.400
in some ways that's only part way
through the story. Even though Leonard was

659
00:53:04.480 --> 00:53:08.760
arrested and charged with fraud. At
that point, neither MCIs, nor the

660
00:53:08.880 --> 00:53:14.719
Justice Apartment, nor the Navy leadership
really knew the extent of the corruption.

661
00:53:14.800 --> 00:53:17.920
They knew Leonard had bribed some people, they knew he was getting some classified

662
00:53:17.960 --> 00:53:22.039
information that they had no idea how
much. And it took them a number

663
00:53:22.079 --> 00:53:27.400
of years to really figure out just
how many people have been swept up in

664
00:53:27.480 --> 00:53:31.960
Leonard's orbit. The biggest thing that
happened was Leonard decides in twenty fifteen to

665
00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:37.599
plead guilty and to cooperate to turn
state's evidence, and as part of his

666
00:53:37.760 --> 00:53:43.679
deal, he agrees to hand over
these enormous files he had maintained on everybody.

667
00:53:43.679 --> 00:53:45.800
You know, like a good case
agent. Leonard had kept files.

668
00:53:45.880 --> 00:53:50.800
He kept emails, he kept thank
you notes, he kept signed menus.

669
00:53:50.880 --> 00:53:55.400
He had photographs of officers with girls
on their laps. He kept all the

670
00:53:55.760 --> 00:54:00.840
literal receipts of their hotel stays.
He had kept everything for about twenty years.

671
00:54:01.239 --> 00:54:07.039
And this was for prosecutors. This
is a gold mine of information because

672
00:54:07.079 --> 00:54:09.599
of course everybody at that point have
been interviewed was clamming up. They all

673
00:54:09.679 --> 00:54:15.480
were worried they'd get arrested and Leonard's
giving them the receipts to show all the

674
00:54:15.559 --> 00:54:19.199
people who had taken his gifts or
bribes over twenty years. And that's what

675
00:54:19.320 --> 00:54:25.119
really cracked open the investigation to a
large degree. And I'm sure somebody who

676
00:54:25.159 --> 00:54:30.320
has written about this for so long
that this has got even more frustrating than

677
00:54:30.400 --> 00:54:36.880
it is for everybody else, especially
those that are you know the old cliche

678
00:54:37.119 --> 00:54:43.800
that justice delayed is justice denied.
Here we are zoom a timeline over a

679
00:54:43.840 --> 00:54:52.360
decade later, and not only Leonard
manage to run away to Venezuela and come

680
00:54:52.400 --> 00:54:58.840
back. It's something again that's probably
worth at least a Hulu mini series,

681
00:54:59.599 --> 00:55:05.440
manage it to get back to the
US. But last month, federal prosecutors

682
00:55:06.559 --> 00:55:15.280
drop charges against Hornback, Gorsuch,
Sanchez de Guzman and really shockingly shed due

683
00:55:15.280 --> 00:55:23.599
to prosecutal prosecutorial misconduct. And somebody
who has long had a reporter's i on

684
00:55:23.719 --> 00:55:30.119
DC and our bureaucracy in our judicial
system, this had this whole process in

685
00:55:30.159 --> 00:55:32.880
the last decade, has got to
set you back a little bit. I'm

686
00:55:32.920 --> 00:55:39.559
just curious how watching this not unfold
but fumble apart, so to speak,

687
00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:45.840
how has this shaped your view of
how we do things in this country from

688
00:55:45.840 --> 00:55:52.480
that criteriar angle. Well, it's
shocking every bit of it. So just

689
00:55:52.519 --> 00:55:55.920
to back up a second, so, there have been about thirty four people

690
00:55:57.000 --> 00:56:00.960
charged by the Justice Department, and
them it pleaded guilty. There were five

691
00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:05.960
others who went on trial in twenty
twenty two. This case had taken years

692
00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:08.159
to go to trial. Part of
it was COVID, part of it was

693
00:56:08.400 --> 00:56:12.679
people on both sides dragging their feet
just as part of its swopping. People

694
00:56:12.719 --> 00:56:19.000
would plead out and these defendants didn't. The defendants were also frankly dragging out

695
00:56:19.039 --> 00:56:22.639
the case because Leonard was sick,
you know, they thought he They had

696
00:56:22.679 --> 00:56:25.199
heard he was terminally ill with cancer, so they were hoping he would die.

697
00:56:25.400 --> 00:56:30.559
So this case took forever to go
to trial. When it finally did,

698
00:56:30.119 --> 00:56:34.400
four of the defendants were found guilty
of fraud and bride recharges. But

699
00:56:34.480 --> 00:56:38.320
then the wheels really started to fall
off soon after that, And there were

700
00:56:38.880 --> 00:56:44.800
two main things that happened. One
was that shortly before Leonard himself was supposed

701
00:56:44.840 --> 00:56:49.119
to be sentenced in September twenty twenty
two, he's worried. At that point,

702
00:56:49.199 --> 00:56:52.159
he's out on medical furlough, living, believe it or not, in

703
00:56:52.239 --> 00:56:58.280
a seven thousand dollars a month mansion
in San Diego with his own servants and

704
00:56:58.320 --> 00:57:00.880
his family, even though he s
to be in jail. He had persuaded

705
00:57:00.920 --> 00:57:06.199
a judge, conned a federal judge
in thinking he was dying of cancer,

706
00:57:06.320 --> 00:57:08.960
so she let him out and he
was cooperating with the justice permit, so

707
00:57:09.000 --> 00:57:14.119
they didn't object. And he's living
the high life with money paid for with

708
00:57:14.199 --> 00:57:16.800
money he had stolen from the knave. But at that point he was worried

709
00:57:16.840 --> 00:57:20.960
his sentencing was coming to He kind
of put his finger in the wind.

710
00:57:21.039 --> 00:57:22.400
Was worried he was going to have
to go back to prison, and that

711
00:57:22.519 --> 00:57:27.360
was the last place he wanted to
go. So Leonard, believe it or

712
00:57:27.400 --> 00:57:31.320
not, escaped federal home detention.
He cut off the ankle bracelet around his

713
00:57:31.400 --> 00:57:37.880
ankle. Nobody was watching him.
He called an uber and went across the

714
00:57:37.920 --> 00:57:40.599
border to Tajuana. He ended up
going through Cuba and Venezuela, and it

715
00:57:40.679 --> 00:57:44.519
was just, you know, it
was one of these things even the Hollywood

716
00:57:44.519 --> 00:57:49.119
people couldn't write. Nobody would believe
it, right, How could this three

717
00:57:49.239 --> 00:57:53.280
hundred and fifty pound guy with cancer
escape federal detention, and yet he did

718
00:57:54.280 --> 00:58:00.039
the other thing that really happened to
have the wheels fall off was the prosecutors.

719
00:58:01.159 --> 00:58:04.519
You know, it's hard to know
what was in their head, but

720
00:58:04.920 --> 00:58:08.840
they really screwed up big time.
They got caught cheating during this trial.

721
00:58:09.400 --> 00:58:15.559
They had withheld evidence from the defense, which is a huge no no,

722
00:58:15.639 --> 00:58:20.519
you don't withhold exculpatory evidence that could
help the defense. And what they had

723
00:58:20.559 --> 00:58:25.599
done is they had interviewed a prostitute. The federal agents had interviewed a prostitute

724
00:58:25.639 --> 00:58:32.199
had been a one of Leonard's parties, and this prostitute Leonard had assigned to

725
00:58:32.239 --> 00:58:37.920
spend the night with one of the
navy officers, this aforementioned Captain Lausman.

726
00:58:37.559 --> 00:58:45.480
And during the trial, the head
prosecutor said, you know this Captain Lusman

727
00:58:45.559 --> 00:58:47.880
slept with this prostitute. This was
a quick pro quote. Leonard gave him

728
00:58:47.880 --> 00:58:52.159
a prostitute and he slept with her. But in fact, when the prostitute

729
00:58:52.239 --> 00:58:55.239
was interviewed by federal agents, she
said, well, she wasn't the party,

730
00:58:55.239 --> 00:58:59.599
but Lusman didn't sleep with her.
They just spent the night in a

731
00:58:59.639 --> 00:59:04.039
hotel room together. That Mossman was
uncomfortable with it, and he didn't have

732
00:59:04.119 --> 00:59:07.599
sex with her. So this directly
contradicted what prosecutors had said at trial.

733
00:59:07.639 --> 00:59:14.039
And worse, the prosecutors hid her
statement from the defense. The defense eventually

734
00:59:14.079 --> 00:59:17.559
found out protested to the judge.
They started looking further. There were other

735
00:59:19.400 --> 00:59:25.639
problems with the prosecution withholding evidence or
not describing how things were properly handled.

736
00:59:25.679 --> 00:59:31.599
They hid the special treatment that Leonard
Francis had received when he cooperated, and

737
00:59:31.639 --> 00:59:37.639
it just unspooled from there. So, as you said, just last month

738
00:59:37.800 --> 00:59:42.800
in May, the justice part was
forced to cut new deals with five individuals

739
00:59:42.840 --> 00:59:46.760
who had pleaded guilty to felonies.
These were five people who had admitted taking

740
00:59:46.840 --> 00:59:52.599
brides from Leonard. Three of them
had admitted leading him classified information. And

741
00:59:52.679 --> 00:59:54.960
in the end they all got off
the hook. You know. They either

742
00:59:55.000 --> 01:00:00.840
were allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanors
with no time served, which is essentially,

743
01:00:00.840 --> 01:00:05.360
you know, like getting a traffic
ticket. And this Navy commander named

744
01:00:05.400 --> 01:00:09.119
Steve shed who you mentioned, who
had admitted leaking classified material to Leonard on

745
01:00:10.159 --> 01:00:15.639
about ten occasions and taking bribes worth
more than one hundred thousand dollars, they

746
01:00:15.719 --> 01:00:21.719
dropped all charges against him, so
he was let completely go. And you

747
01:00:21.719 --> 01:00:23.480
know, it's just hard to get
your head around how a case could fall

748
01:00:23.519 --> 01:00:29.840
apart that badly. But you know, once the prosecutors taint some cases in

749
01:00:29.920 --> 01:00:32.280
this, you know, it really
lets the rest of them unravel too.

750
01:00:32.360 --> 01:00:37.079
And the big question now is what
happens to Leonard. You know, he

751
01:00:37.239 --> 01:00:40.599
was brought back in a prisoner swap
from Venezuela in December, in a deal

752
01:00:40.719 --> 01:00:45.880
broker by the White House. But
will this prosecutorial misconduct effect his case?

753
01:00:46.000 --> 01:00:51.199
Could they be required to let him
go back to Malaysia without any more time

754
01:00:51.239 --> 01:00:54.800
served, And that's certainly a possibility. The Justice Partent hasn't commented on it

755
01:00:54.880 --> 01:01:00.440
yet. He's supposed to get sentenced
in November, but you can be sure

756
01:01:00.440 --> 01:01:05.440
that Leonard's attorneys trying to cut another
deal with the Justice Department to perhaps get

757
01:01:05.480 --> 01:01:08.239
time served or again get a lighter
sentence than you would receive otherwise. So

758
01:01:08.320 --> 01:01:13.519
I wouldn't be surprised if if this
case really falls apart, with more people

759
01:01:13.880 --> 01:01:17.800
getting their felonies dismissed and Leonard going
back home. It's just it's appalling how

760
01:01:17.840 --> 01:01:22.599
it's turned out. But you know
from beginning to end, the whole case

761
01:01:22.679 --> 01:01:24.960
is appalling. So I guess in
a way it's it's keeping with the theme.

762
01:01:25.559 --> 01:01:32.079
Yeah, it's a fascinating example of
I mean, I don't think there's

763
01:01:32.119 --> 01:01:37.760
anything quite likely. There's like a
three rank circus of horrors and depredation and

764
01:01:37.679 --> 01:01:43.679
fraud. But it's just so unbelievable
that, you know, if you try

765
01:01:43.679 --> 01:01:45.679
to tell the story or something that
I don't believe that could possibly happen.

766
01:01:45.800 --> 01:01:51.760
And and fairness to the Navy at
this point with the Navy did a lot

767
01:01:51.800 --> 01:01:53.079
of things wrong, and people in
the Navy did a lot of things wrong.

768
01:01:53.079 --> 01:01:58.960
But these prosecutors in the case themselves
were federal prosecutors. They were not

769
01:01:59.440 --> 01:02:05.079
maybe jag people. Right, that's
absolutely right. So this is the Justice

770
01:02:05.079 --> 01:02:07.199
Department. This is on them,
right, this is egg on their face.

771
01:02:07.480 --> 01:02:12.199
And you know, this is worse. And what the Navy Jags did,

772
01:02:12.320 --> 01:02:15.760
I mean, the Navy Jags were
letting Leonard do unethical things, right,

773
01:02:16.320 --> 01:02:20.199
and you know, not all but
a number of them. But these

774
01:02:20.239 --> 01:02:23.880
federal prosecutors they you know, they
broke the law, they cheated, and

775
01:02:23.920 --> 01:02:29.880
you don't do that stuff in cases. You don't withhold exculpatory evidence, and

776
01:02:30.800 --> 01:02:32.480
you know, they had a strong
case. You know, there was no

777
01:02:32.559 --> 01:02:37.199
need for them to do this.
They they want convictionate trial of four individuals,

778
01:02:37.679 --> 01:02:43.159
and the evidence was pretty overwhelming.
But because of these, you know,

779
01:02:43.360 --> 01:02:46.480
withholding certain statements, withholding the fact
that they have been giving Leonard the

780
01:02:46.599 --> 01:02:51.280
royal treatment when he was supposed to
be in jail, you know this all

781
01:02:51.880 --> 01:02:53.360
you know, I can't explain it, but it blew up in their face.

782
01:02:53.440 --> 01:02:58.000
But you know, that's on the
Justice Apartment for the way they handled

783
01:02:58.000 --> 01:03:01.519
this. And but again, Leonard
is this you know, he's this world

784
01:03:01.599 --> 01:03:06.119
class con man. He calmed people
in the Navy, he conned the Justice

785
01:03:06.159 --> 01:03:08.880
Department, he conned a federal judge. You know, he's he's very,

786
01:03:08.960 --> 01:03:14.079
very smart and people should never underest
me just how how clever he is.

787
01:03:14.159 --> 01:03:16.159
And he's you know, at every
turn, he's he's worked it to his

788
01:03:16.239 --> 01:03:20.599
advantage. And to me, that's
the fascinating part of the story. It's

789
01:03:20.639 --> 01:03:25.400
really a biography of Leonard Frances and
this hurricane he sent through the Navy and

790
01:03:25.440 --> 01:03:30.079
the federal government. But again,
it's it's it's incredible how long this story

791
01:03:30.199 --> 01:03:34.480
lasted. And it's been ten years. As you said, since he was

792
01:03:34.599 --> 01:03:37.599
arrested, and we're still getting new
twists and turns that are that are hard

793
01:03:37.639 --> 01:03:40.920
to hard to believe, but it's
just it's one of those stories you can't

794
01:03:40.960 --> 01:03:46.400
make up. Absolutely. And for
those that didn't join us at the very

795
01:03:46.400 --> 01:03:52.639
beginning, we've been interviewing Craig Whitlock
with his book Fat Leonard, How One

796
01:03:52.679 --> 01:03:57.360
Man bribed, bulked, and seduced
the US Navy. And if the listeners

797
01:03:57.400 --> 01:04:00.039
want to keep track of you,
see what else you're working on, it

798
01:04:00.039 --> 01:04:01.920
would be a good place for them
to keep their eyes Craig, And do

799
01:04:01.920 --> 01:04:05.719
you have another project in the works
that we can look forward to. So

800
01:04:05.920 --> 01:04:11.519
I'm still an investigative reporter for the
Washing Posts. I'm on x and LinkedIn,

801
01:04:11.760 --> 01:04:15.440
and but on the Washing Post you
can certainly keep track of what I'm

802
01:04:15.519 --> 01:04:17.360
up to. I am working on
another project, nothing to do with with

803
01:04:17.519 --> 01:04:21.679
Leonard, but I have to keep
that quiet till it comes out as an

804
01:04:21.719 --> 01:04:26.599
investigative reporter. But one thing if
I could mention in this book, I

805
01:04:26.599 --> 01:04:29.760
would like to stress this is probably
more important to me than others, but

806
01:04:29.840 --> 01:04:32.440
as a journalist, you know everything
in this book is based on on the

807
01:04:32.519 --> 01:04:38.639
record interviews and on official documents that
took me years to get my hands on.

808
01:04:39.320 --> 01:04:43.239
So you know, there's no blind
quotes in here, there's no anonymous

809
01:04:43.280 --> 01:04:49.239
sources, and understandably, the public's
really skeptical of journalists using anonymous sources or

810
01:04:49.400 --> 01:04:54.719
just a narrative with no sourcing you
back it up. I was pretty meticulous

811
01:04:54.840 --> 01:05:00.119
in attributing all the facts in the
in the endnotes and the footnotes, and

812
01:05:00.440 --> 01:05:02.960
you know, all these quotes.
It's a crazy story. It's almost an

813
01:05:03.039 --> 01:05:06.320
unbelievable story, right. I do
want to stress that it's all true,

814
01:05:06.320 --> 01:05:11.960
and it's all backed up with documentation
and on the record interviews, so you

815
01:05:11.960 --> 01:05:16.079
know, nobody's disputed a single fact
since the book has come out, even

816
01:05:16.079 --> 01:05:19.440
though it's put a lot of people
in a negative light, but you know,

817
01:05:19.480 --> 01:05:24.000
it's all backed up. It's all
bulletproof. And that's something I'm proud

818
01:05:24.039 --> 01:05:27.639
of because that wasn't easy to pull
off, but I think in a story

819
01:05:27.760 --> 01:05:30.039
like that, it was all the
more important to show. Look, this

820
01:05:30.159 --> 01:05:34.239
is all backed up with hard evidence. This isn't people just talking out a

821
01:05:34.360 --> 01:05:40.760
turn or whispering you know, stuff
that on background or anonymously. This is

822
01:05:41.320 --> 01:05:45.000
all on the record stuff and that's
why it was so powerful having you write

823
01:05:45.039 --> 01:05:50.079
this is I would just mentioned everybody, there's three hundred and sixty three end

824
01:05:50.119 --> 01:05:55.360
notes in a fourteenth page and deck
so as I mean, this story is

825
01:05:55.360 --> 01:05:58.400
still being telled, but whenever people
will go back to it. Craig on

826
01:05:58.599 --> 01:06:01.119
question, this is going to be
rep a because if there's somebody something that

827
01:06:01.199 --> 01:06:04.920
comes up that people want to dig
into, go to the end notes.

828
01:06:04.960 --> 01:06:09.280
You've got a couple of notes on
it. It really is a great resource

829
01:06:09.320 --> 01:06:15.599
and something you should be really proud
of and hopefully it'll continue to garner readers.

830
01:06:16.239 --> 01:06:19.559
Well. Thank you both so much. It's been a pleasure and love

831
01:06:19.639 --> 01:06:23.760
talking about it. Thank thank you
for joining us. It's an excellent book

832
01:06:23.760 --> 01:06:27.280
and I hope it does well for
you and good luck on your future endeavors

833
01:06:27.280 --> 01:06:30.880
and keep us posted definitely. Thanks
great being with you both again and hope

834
01:06:30.880 --> 01:06:34.880
to be back again soon. Yes
sir, and thank you everybody for joining

835
01:06:34.960 --> 01:06:39.800
us for another edition of mid Rats
And until next time, I hope everybody

836
01:06:39.840 --> 01:07:00.519
has a great Navy day and behave
yourself in westpac You want to marry me

837
01:07:00.880 --> 01:07:11.760
and a friend of becondily for you
being to blame more lovely love me sill

838
01:07:13.079 --> 01:07:21.239
faulting your the ame. It's a
long way to disperary. It's a long

839
01:07:21.360 --> 01:07:33.840
way to go. It's a long
way to disper to the Queen gor b

840
01:07:34.800 --> 01:07:44.599
becdi farewell, listen, twell,
it's a long long way to dipperate.

841
01:07:45.960 --> 01:07:46.360
But my life