Speaker 1: This is later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast
Speaker 1: more what You Hear weekday afternoons on the Drive.
Speaker 3: He was the.
Speaker 2: Assistant Director for counter Intelligence at the FBI, where he
Speaker 2: served twenty five years as a special agent and directed
Speaker 2: all espionage investigations across the government. Frank Figliuzi is now
Speaker 2: a columnist at the National Security Analyst and author of
Speaker 2: the recently published Long Haul about Trucker serial Killers, had
Speaker 2: him on about that a couple of weeks ago. Democrat
Speaker 2: National Convention is beginning, and Frank, given the recent actions
Speaker 2: of the Secret Service and FBI, there are a lot
Speaker 2: of questions as to how it'll go.
Speaker 3: Well, the spotlight will certainly be on the Secret Service
Speaker 3: for sure. I mean, they've had a colossal failure. It
Speaker 3: can't happen again. They've got to get this right. But
Speaker 3: you know, you can't have a more stark contrast between
Speaker 3: an open field rally in a small town in Pennsylvania
Speaker 3: and a hardened venue convention center in a major city.
Speaker 3: So they'll have the convention venue under control. Where I'm
Speaker 3: looking at is the softer perimeter and the protesters. So
Speaker 3: here's the latest intel with regard to security in Chicago.
Speaker 3: The protesters have been moved by a federal judge as
Speaker 3: of yesterday or just just this week a mile away.
Speaker 3: Now what am I talking about? They are expecting a
Speaker 3: minimum of twenty five thousand pro Palestinian protesters. And let
Speaker 3: me lay this scenario out for you. Imagine when the
Speaker 3: convention starts, that hostilities begin in the Middle East with
Speaker 3: Iran lobbing missiles at Israel, which is expected, and Hesbola
Speaker 3: simultaneously from Lebanon lobbing missiles at Israel. US feels compelled
Speaker 3: to intervene militarily. And now those twenty five thousand pro
Speaker 3: Palestine and protesters on the streets of Chicago turn into
Speaker 3: fifty thousand. That's a scenario we're going to be watching.
Speaker 3: And then so combine that with not only an international
Speaker 3: terror threat with ISIS and others, but a domestic terror
Speaker 3: threat that we know can turn violent, and.
Speaker 2: Keep hearing comparisons to nineteen sixty eight. I disagree on
Speaker 2: a number of angles on that we are not in
Speaker 2: a war that is wildly unpopular. We're not sending eighteen
Speaker 2: to twenty one year olds to their deaths. We don't
Speaker 2: have a president that supports one or the other, nor
Speaker 2: a candidate that is at this convention supporting one or
Speaker 2: the other. What are your thoughts on a repeat of
Speaker 2: nineteen and sixty eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the police back in sixty eight were wholly unprepared
Speaker 3: for what was happening and really untrained to deal with
Speaker 3: what broke out. We've had the Chicago Police chief this
Speaker 3: week come out publicly at a press conference and say
Speaker 3: they are not going to talk tolerate rioting. They have
Speaker 3: a plan to intervene quickly as soon as any violence
Speaker 3: looks like it's breaking out. I'm confident we're not going
Speaker 3: to have that kind of repeat of sixty eight, But
Speaker 3: I would keep my eye on the issue of loan
Speaker 3: actors that like Butler Pennsylvania as the young man who
Speaker 3: tried to assassinate Trump. Those people are very hard to
Speaker 3: guard against except to keep them far away from the venue.
Speaker 3: So if the activity occurs illegally, we're going to see
Speaker 3: it happen in the soft perimeter or beyond. And I'm
Speaker 3: going to watch that pro protest crowd and see if
Speaker 3: they turn violent and try to breach the perimeter. And
Speaker 3: then let's not forget that the FBI director has told
Speaker 3: us multiple times that within the FBI's domestic terror case slope,
Speaker 3: it's the race based and hate based domestic terror that
Speaker 3: is most lethal. That's his quote. What do we have
Speaker 3: with regard to the convention. We have a mixed race
Speaker 3: person of color who is going to be the nominee
Speaker 3: for a party that is not going over well with
Speaker 3: some of the white supremacy, white hate based groups that
Speaker 3: we're looking at.
Speaker 2: Frank Figliuzi is with us. He is a security expert,
Speaker 2: former Assistant director for counter intelligence at the FBI, is
Speaker 2: now an author and analyst, and you may remember we
Speaker 2: had him on to talk about his book recently, Long Haul,
Speaker 2: talking about the security at the upcoming Democrat National Convention. Now, Frank,
Speaker 2: we all witnessed what happened last week in Vienna at
Speaker 2: the Taylor Swift Concerts. Those terrorists, as it turned out,
Speaker 2: looked like they were cultivated within the country itself, and
Speaker 2: we're starting to see some of that here in the
Speaker 2: United States. It's not foreign actors, it's cultivated and conditioned
Speaker 2: domestic actors. Are we starting to see a bigger threat
Speaker 2: from our own people than those trying to come into
Speaker 2: our country and hurt us?
Speaker 3: For sure? I'm seeing disturbingly the online radicalization of people.
Speaker 3: And by the way, this applies to the left, to
Speaker 3: the right, to domestic terror, to international terror. The action
Speaker 3: is happening online and what we're watching is an increasing
Speaker 3: speed to radicalization is what we call it. By that,
Speaker 3: we mean the time it takes for a young person
Speaker 3: to become radicalized from the first time they're exposed to
Speaker 3: an extremist ideology, whether they're watching a cleric talk about
Speaker 3: killing the Jews, for example, or they're watching beheading videos,
Speaker 3: to the time they're willing to act out violently themselves
Speaker 3: is increasing rapidly. So you can take a seventeen year
Speaker 3: old young man who's seeking something in his life. You
Speaker 3: can expose into this training, to this ideology, and literally
Speaker 3: within two months they're willing to commit an act of
Speaker 3: terror that happens within our own borders.
Speaker 2: And as was the case in Vienna with the Taylor
Speaker 2: Swift situation, they shut things down, secret service taking notes
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 3: Oh for sure. I mean again, the young people that
Speaker 3: are not necessarily known. Thank god, the FBI actually tipped
Speaker 3: off the Austrians to that. So we're doing okay here
Speaker 3: from him. Yeah, it's been established that the FBI tipped
Speaker 3: off the Austrians. So that's good news of course that
Speaker 3: we have eyes on some of these people. But but
Speaker 3: you can't get it right every single time, and the
Speaker 3: bad guy only needs to get it right once. And
Speaker 3: so yes, that is a concern here. So a bomb device,
Speaker 3: is any kind of improvised explosive, is a biochem threat.
Speaker 3: Here's the good news. This event has been designated a
Speaker 3: National security Special event. That means the entire toolkit of
Speaker 3: the federal government, including some classified techniques that will look
Speaker 3: for say a dirty bomb or some kind of improvised device,
Speaker 3: that's all going to be on the ground, even in
Speaker 3: the air in Chicago. And that does give me some
Speaker 3: high level of confidence.
Speaker 2: Frank Figliuosi, assistant director, former assistant director for counter intelligence
Speaker 2: at the FBI, and the security at the Democrat National
Speaker 2: Committee coming up in Chicago, and I get, what's the
Speaker 2: worst case scenario?
Speaker 3: You think, oh, my goodness, Well, a breach, So on
Speaker 3: a general level, a breach of the actual venue site
Speaker 3: is going to would obviously be horrific. But you know,
Speaker 3: we saw that on January sixth at the Capitol. They
Speaker 3: got inside. Now you can argue how they got inside,
Speaker 3: but they got me breached and they got inside, that
Speaker 3: would be worse. But let's talk on the international level.
Speaker 3: Or anybody who has gotten their hands on some radiological
Speaker 3: device and wants to detonate a small dirty bomb in
Speaker 3: the crowd outside the venue that has a tremendous fear
Speaker 3: factor associated with it, and that's what they'll be looking for,
Speaker 3: is some kind of mass killing device outside the vent.
Speaker 2: Frank Figliosi, thank you for joining us, and again his
Speaker 2: book is still out by the way, Long Haul, about
Speaker 2: the trucking industry and the infiltration of sex traffickers and
Speaker 2: drug traffickers as well into that industry. Will thank you
Speaker 2: for joining us again, thanks for
Speaker 1: Having me, Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews
Speaker 1: the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The
Speaker 1: Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia
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