we're very excited to have with us this evening washington post journalist craig whitlock, who's here to talk about his new book, fat leonard how one man bribed, bilked and, seduced the u.s. navy. craig is an investigative reporter who specializes in

national security issues. he came to the washington post about 26 years ago after stints at a couple of newspapers in south at the post. he went from covering local and state stories to serving as a foreign correspondent, a pentagon reporter and national security specialist. he's won a bunch of awards and been a pure surprise finalist three times. so anytime and any year now. he's bound to get what his previous book, three years ago, the afghanistan papers provided a searing account of america's mistakes, mismanagement and missed opportunities in what became our country's longest war. when it comes to military scandals, though, it's to rival in scope outright brazenness. the fat leonard saga and craig overcoming navy resistance to letting the whole story out has

nonetheless managed his own dogged reporting to expose the the full extent of the shameful and damaging corruption for 25 years. leonard glen francis and his singapore based company played a critical supporting the navy's seventh fleet, which operates in the western pacific. the indian oceans. but francis ultimate italy was found to have been bribing scores of military with gifts and parties, bilking millions and millions of dollars from defense contract acts and even a network of moles inside the u.s. navy by targeting officers, various vulnerabilities. nearly 1000 people were eventually up in the investigation.

including 685 u.s. service members among, them 91 admirals, all although only only one admiral has has ended up going to prison. and while many more enlisted sailors and junior officers have been punished more harshly. and i'm sure craig will get into into those those disparities and in the way this whole thing has played out out. craig himself started covering the scandal in the fall of 2013, soon after francis his arrest in san diego. and the more craig wrote about it. he says in the preface of his book, the more he realized the story was much bigger and more -- for navy than federal authorities were letting on. so he pursued it even after the navy stopped responding to his former request. in time, craig gained access to, among other revealing material, the case files of the federal

agents in the investigation. the book is is a terrific feat of investigative reporting and really reads like a thriller. now, in conversation with craig this evening will be nancy youssef, a national security at wall street's wall street, where she's been for for three years. previously covered defense and national security affairs for the daily beast. buzzfeed news and the mcclatchy. and before that, she worked for detroit free press and then baltimore sun. but she she also really knows the military. so we've got a great, great conversation, partner for for craig this evening. please join me in welcoming craig whitlock, nancy youssef.

good evening, everyone. thank you so much joining us. and what i hope will be a lively conversation about, a very lively person in preparation for today's event. i was looking up the fat leonard scandal on wikipedia. and if you type the name craig whitlock, it comes up more. then glenn defends asia. the husband company that was the main driver and the center of what allowed leonard francis to do what he did. and so i think it really speaks to how craig has been covering this story and how much he's kept it at the fore of of of the public discourse. and so. ten years is a long time to commit to a to story. and i wanted to know if you could start by walking us through, craig, what made you sort of give so much of your journalistic skill to this and help us sort of what the fat leonard scandal and what a husbanding services, the service

that he provided that allowed was the driver. all of this? yeah, back in 2013, nancy and i were both beat reporters at the pentagon when the great things i loved about nancy as soon after i started on the beat, you could tell that all the generals, admirals, everybody else at the pentagon was scared of her. and and i always had great admiration for that. and so i always followed her lead on lines of inquiry. but was in 2013, it was, you maybe remember, the navy yard massacre when there was a shooting at the navy yard, d.c. and a civilian contractor there just went off and started killing. people use mentally. but on that same day at the navy yard shooting there was an arrest in san diego of a navy named leonard glenn francis. and in addition to francis being arrested on corruption and bribery charges, there were two navy personnel who were also

charged bribery. one was a navy who had been the news a few years earlier for making a triumphant return to cambodia. he was a native of cambodia, had fled cambodia as a five year old son, fled the fields in the genocide. there he was adopted by an american servicewoman, went to the naval academy and went through through the ranks of the navy and went back to cambodia a year as the captain. captain of a u.s. navy destroyer. and this was, you know, this this moment in the sun, the navy, and for him. so he was arrested, bribery charges. and in addition to him, there was a special with the naval criminal investigation service. so a federal law enforcement agent was also arrested and bribery. so this caught my attention and yet all attention, you know, news coverage and. washington understandably was a focus on the navy yard massacre. so after a few weeks. i was following this case from

afar have been a couple of ap reports about these arrests. and i was wandering through the halls of the the corridors of the pentagon and i bumped into a navy officer knew. i said, do you know anything about this guy? leonard francis is contra actor and this navy officer got a big smile on his face and said, oh, you mean fat leonard and i my eyes got big. and i said, really is names fat leonard? he goes, everybody in navy knows fat leonard. and so that hooked me right, you know. and, you know, you've got an unusual case of bribery, very unusual involving a navy officer law enforcement agent. but this character named fat leonard, who everybody in the navy knew, just maybe want to know more. so from that point forward, i wrote a page one story in the washington post. but at that point, we only knew the tip of this scandal, even the justice department wasn't aware of how many people had been up in it. and over the next years, there were these steady drips of

additional people getting arrested or and so. i just as any reporter wanted to keep at it and kept away and there were so many twists and turns in whole story. i won't get into all of them, but here we are more than ten years later and the story is still unfolding so it's been a fantastic it's been the best story of my career in terms interest and scope and sorted ness and corruption and it's got all the elements in it. do me a favor and tell people to husbanding services. so that was the company he leonard francis owned a company called glen defense marine asia and it based in singapore. he was a husbanding contractor and by that he provided supplies whenever a navy ship pulled into port in southeast asia or even from japan and on down to australia earlier whenever they pulled into a foreign civilian, a navy ship needed or fresh water needed food, needed fuel

needed security, needed tugboats barges in leonard's company over 25 years, essentially gained a monopoly on providing all these throughout asia. it's to keep in mind that the navy's. biggest fleet is in the asia-pacific us seventh fleet, so almost half of the navy's forward deployed ships and submarines at any given time are in the seventh fleet area. so leonard francis really not just did he have a big business, he played a huge role in u.s. navy operation, runs essentially half of the world. so this story unfolding over 25 years. he's a critical player in military operations in addition to being one of the biggest crooks and con men you'll ever hear about. you know, you the word character earlier. and i think that's an important one in this book, because one one of the reasons it's such a page turner is his personality and the ways that he sort of, frankly, service members to be

lured into these traps and. so as i read it, it just seemed that one was his character and play against the character of those. i wonder if you could tell us little bit what was it about leonard francis that allowed him to be so successful? those sailors in and what were some of the character deficiencies in some of those sailors that made them so susceptible to his schemes so leonard francis, he's a charming rogue. he's a villain in the book. he's of an anti-hero, but he's undoubtedly a real charmer. and he knew how to sidle up to people to be friendly, to gain their confidence. and, you know, it was he had a real magnetic personality. his origins are different. he was actually a high school dropout, and most people in the navy were unaware of this. and he had actually spent time in prison as a young man on gun crime. so if you look on paper, you think this is not guy who should be charming his way into senior levels of the u.s., but he even though he was a dropout from high school, extraordinarily

smart. a lot of people call him brilliant and in addition to being such a good con, having that personality, he was he was a master of espionage. he was able to con people in the navy into giving him military secrets and so on one hand, well, it's funny and you may laugh and he's entertaining he's also represents a real national security threat to the navy. he was able to penetrate at the senior levels of command like nobody else has done, even the cold war. yeah. you know, you mentioned at the beginning of the book the amount of data that was available, terror bytes worth. and i noticed that you used three of them as sort of a connective thread to tell the story of the scandal. one of them are bravo zulus, which i'll ask you to describe what those are. another the menus that that were the meals these extravagant meals that were served at all over the asia to these sailors and the other is leonard's weight given all the data that you had in front of you why did you pick those three?

what do you think that illustrated to the reader about the scandal. so one reason i've been reading this story for ten years is it took me that long to. get to the bottom of it. right. and i wish it could have happened quicker. but the navy was really digging its heels in in terms of not releasing public information. so it took me a long time using every method i could. i've learned over 35 years as a reporter in terms coaxing people for information or public records or court records or just getting people to tell slip me information. and, you know, in the end, it was able to together this story using all sorts data points, as you point out. but one advantage i had was leonard francis was a packrat. he kept everything for 25 years. he was very proud of the job he did with the u.s. navy so even though on one hand, he's he's u.s. taxpayers and he's bribing people, he's proud. he's this key cog in u.s. navy

operations. he felt patrick frick, even though he was a malaysian, he felt like he was part of the u.s. navy and he kept everything is memorabilia, but also blackmail purposes. so whenever he had emails from u.s. navy officers saying, thanks, leonard for the gift. thanks, leonard, for that wonderful little meal you threw last for us or thanks for the girls, which a number of them did. or when you take photographs, he kept everything. he literally kept it in storehouses, in warehouses over 25 years. so eventually got my hands on most of that stuff. and you mentioned one thing. the menu so leonard, when he would throw dinner parties for people in the navy officers from a visiting destroyer or carrier strike group leonard just didn't throw dinner parties. you had to have the finest michelin starred restaurants in asia in. these dinners would sometimes cause six, seven, $800,000 a person, and a lot of it was on not just alcohol, but it had be

the finest champagnes and import pastries from france and you name it, foie gras. and so any time you to dinner, you had a customized menu right. you know if you go not just there, not just order a la carte off the menu it's going to be a customized menu courtesy of mr. leonard glen france is for members of the uss carl penns or uss nimitz. and so would keep these customized menus, which were a wonderful description of just how austin's teaches these gifts. you were providing. it's also important to keep in mind that in the us navy, as well as the rest of the federal, there is a strict rule that you ethics rule that you can't accept gifts worth more than $20 from any federal contractor at a time. and yet, here's leonard out these fantastic meals that worth, you know multitudes than that so that enabled me to three tell the story of these

wonderful spreads you put on you also mentioned bravo zulu letters bravo zulu is a term in the navy that essentially means good job or well done. so whenever a navy commanding officer when they send out in attaboy to someone in navy or to an institution they send out what's known as a bravo zulu letter and leonard coveted these he wanted these bravo zulu letters time a ship came in for a visit in singapore or lumpur or hong kong or tokyo because this was essentially an endorsement of his services. then he would hoard these things. he would actively seek them out, because then he would submit them as part of his contract, is to say, look, you know, the admiral said, i did a great job. and but what he wouldn't say is the reason he got these endorsement letters is because he took the admiral out to $1,000 meal the night before. but again, he was very clever. he understood how the navy worked. he was very systematic in the way he bribed people and got word contracts through, the navy

and the way this and way he avoided getting in trouble for long. he was he was a brilliant criminal and he he really the navy better than they him and his weight his weight. so you know this isn't meant to fat shame. leonard francis. everybody in the navy knew him by this name. and as the more reporting i did, the more apparent became that this was, in a way, perverse, a secret to his success because. leonard was a big guy. he's as tall as i am. he's six foot three, but he weighs about 150 more pounds and his weight fluctuated greatly. you know, most time he's around 350 pounds. but for a number of years he was up to hundred. he was a big guy right and he had to have gastric bypass just to get down to 350 every so everybody in the navy knew him as fat leonard. but it also them to underestimate him. right. they thought, well, how trouble could this fat guy be you know,

they really saw him as this jolly large guy who was always throwing they didn't see him as a to national security. so in a way that helped his legend, as it were, and made it easier for him to pull the wool over the eyes on people. the navy one thing that i think we underestimate and i think is a necessary element for this scandal to go on as long as it did is, he did provide an effective service. he wasn't just taking out on parties and buying them fancy meals and buying their wives fancy bags. he did a service that nobody else did. i you tell a story about on the uss pulling into chennai in india for the first time, and he was the only in service that could take care of the ships. how much was a factor in keeping the scandal going? could it have gone on if if if he wasn't able to provide the service? so, leonard figured something else. another truth about. the navy and other branches of the military is as long as you

provide reliable service, they don't care what you charge them, right? you know they don't care what it costs. you know, mission comes first, cost comes second, third or fourth. and leonard knew. and so as long as he was there, his barges and tugboats and refueling and food was on time, he knew that most people navy really didn't care how much he or overcharged. so that was a critical aspect of it. and was pretty reliable. his service was pretty good. it wasn't perfect. certainly would overcharge the navy through nose. essentially, he was bribing people in the navy to look the other way so he could overcharge him any time. his ship came in the port and he would overcharge for everything he had one good illustration, one of his most reliable scams was any time ship came into port, it needed to have the sewage pumped out right? you know, when you're in port, you can't just dump it in the harbor and leonard would always overcharge he would claim that

his company out twice as much sewage as the ship's tanks were able to hold. right. you know, and it was obvious of a rip off but he would get supply officers who he'd taken out to dinner, take him out to a sex party. he would get them sign off on his inflated invoices. it was a real brazen quid quo. but again, as long as he was giving the navy what it had asked in terms of service, most people really didn't care how much he charged these are thing strikes me is you know this went as you know for decades but people had seen problem people felt uncomfortable what he was doing he wasn't able to bribe everyone people would come forward they'd they'd go to headquarters. they detailed examples of just egregious behavior. and yet every time until the investigation that led to his downfall, he slipped through, how was he able to do that? what was he doing. to to avert this coming forward?

well, it wasn't just that leonard slipped through. he was he had his own counter defenses. right. he had so many in and moles strategically placed in the navy. they always gave him a heads up. if there was an investigation starting or if there was a complaint filed against his company. so he had moles in the contracting offices. the navy in singapore. he had moles at pacific fleet headquarters in hawaii. he had moles that. seventh fleet flagship, the uss blue ridge. he had moles in ncis, the naval criminal investigative. so he had moles everywhere. he had carefully cultivated time. and these people always gave him a heads up whenever, you know, people were starting to circle his company or ask difficult questions. and so really his defenses were better than any offense. the navy could go on. so the best illustration of this was ncis, a naval criminal investigative service. you've all seen the tv series,

write tv is nothing compared to what they actually do they're a law enforcement agency for navy. they have agents on ships based overseas to investigate fraud, to sexual assault, to protect provide force protection for navy ships in foreign ports. over the years, they had opened more than dozen criminal investigations into leonard's company based on fraud complaint, and every one of them went away because leonard always an answer. good had people on the inside feeding him the information. how to defeat these these cases. so leonard fact at the he became hubristic so over that he could defeat of these investigations that he would almost brag about it he said oh investigation what is it this time? right. he was never worried about it. he knew he could always defeat them. the other thing that jumped out at me as a pentagon correspondent is there were a lot of familiar names in this book book, gilday, ruf, head,

locklear, who became chief of naval operations. and and the book is also peppered with stories of lower officers. some of them you have some for some of them, you're totally disgusted with. but they always seem to take the rap much heavier. these admirals. how were the not only able to slip and not face charges, but continue to rise through the ranks while lower ranking officers paid so much more relative to their to their commanders whose lead they were following in some cases and and allowing them to continue this behavior. so as heard this, i'm sure, nancy, but in the there's this very descriptive phrase called different spanks for different ranks and by that means that, you know, the get away with a slap on the wrist and if an enlisted sailor done the same thing, they get kicked out. there is no tolerance. you know, particularly if you're an enlisted sailor, you can't

screw up. there's no margin if you're if you're late to a meeting, your uniform's on wrong. you know, you can get court martialed. technically for it. but if you're an admiral and you went to leonard's parties or, you slept with one of his prostitutes. in the end, as i discovered in my reporting, those people weren't getting in trouble as brad graham mentioned in the introduction, there were 91 admirals. i found out in. wasn't that the navy's ever disclosed this publicly, but in doing reporting, found out there were 91 admirals who were questioned or investigated for their their interactions with leonard francis and, only one of them spent any in prison. so there's clearly a pattern here where the admirals let off the hook, not only let off the hook or their cases buried despite reporters asking about them frequently and the people who got indicted were charged criminally court martialed were invariably lower ranking officers or enlisted people so that different spanks for different ranks is definitely

borne out throughout this book. i'm going to it to you readers to see how this all unravels, because it's just a page as much a page as, the scandal itself. but i want to note that this all happened over the same period that the u.s. was focused two ground wars in iraq and afghanistan. you had sailors in the furthest part of the world relative to the pentagon and a pentagon that was distracted by arguably by the ground wars. how much was the focus on iraq and afghanistan a factor in keeping this going on as long as it did? you know, it's a great question, nancy. so really two main reasons. so leonard's company really took off after 2000, one after the 911 hijackings. but most importantly, after the bombing of the uss in 2000, in yemen, in the persian gulf, and the uss cole, those of you don't remember, was a destroyer, had made a brief port visit in aden, yemen, and an al qaida plot.

this was just a motorboat, a small boat stuffed with explosives pulled right up next to the destroyer, this multibillion dollar ship, and almost sank it, you know, blew it up. the navy was completely unprepared for this of asymmetric attack. and this completely changed their calculus on trying to protect their ships and ports. and leonard francis you know again smart guy saw an opportunity he's like i have to be able to guarantee the navy that i can protect their ships when they're in foreign ports in southeast asia because there were terrorist threats to southeast asia in places like indonesia. and so leonard invented this brilliant marketing device called the ring of steel. and he would use the ring of steel to surround ships whenever they were important. that sounds pretty impregnable, right? you know the ring of steel. but it was really just a circumference of barges with linked together with steel cables that he would use

surround his ship. and he promised the navy. it would work to prevent any motorboats stuffed with explosives from getting too close. well, the thing one of the revelations in the is nobody ever bothered to test this thing to see if we would actually work but could charge whatever he wanted because the navy again they didn't care what it cost as long as he carried out the mission so this was one he definitely took advantage of this. and then after the in iraq and afghanistan there were more and more navy ships going crossing through leonard's territory in asia to get to the persian gulf. so they would invariable stop off in leonard's territory, his ports in singapore, malaysia, hong kong for what the navy calls liberty, where they're just taking a few days break the occasion, sailors go on on shore for a few of relaxation. and that's when leonard would throw his wild parties and cultivate his to the senior navy leadership. so he took advantage in both of

those ways. the third way you were talking about is this all halfway around the world right? and so people in the navy, there's a tradition really, of what happens in the western pacific, stays in the western. it's kind of like if you go to vegas. right, you know, what happens in vegas, stays in vegas. so leonard knew he could get away with things in terms of his parties and bribes that in the u.s. he probably could never get away with. and so he he sends that early on about navy culture and full advantage of it. the other thing has changed since all happened is we have more women in command in the united states navy, including the cno, the chief of operations. you women in the book, but they show periodically in terms of those in uniform. and one of the things that leonard francis does is also the wives of these sailors buying them purses and luxury meals and everything. do you think if there been more women within the ranks that this would have gone on as as it did, or did the absence women play a

role perpetuating france's ability to the united states navy? i think there's no question that had there been more female officers, particularly senior officers in the navy, this would have been much, much harder for leonard to pull off. and leonard took, you know, really advantage of what was still and definitely in the nineties, in the early 2000s, you know a largely all male good old boy culture where this kind of behavior that even today probably wouldn't be tolerated much was back then this was on the tail on the heels the tailhook investigation and scandal in the early 1990s. this terrible sexual assault case that really paved the way for the navy to bring more women integrate them onto warships and put them in higher levels of command. but, you know, i'll give you one story. in 2003, the uss an aircraft and its strike group made a port visit in singapore. so this is you know 20 years ago

now. and leonard, through of his wild parties on the helipad of a singapore skyscraper, a michelin starred restaurant and. you know, there were 20 girls come in the end of dinner and. you know, the straight group admiral was welcoming all this, right? this dinner with the prostitutes but there was one female officer who was actually the commanding officer of a destroyer here that was part of the strike group. and she was there and she was clearly very uncomfortable at this dinner. right. she was uncomfortable with how much cause she was uncomfortable with, you know, the prostitutes wandering. but what does she do? her boss the strike group admiral is obviously having the time of his life, so she can't him right then and there. so the next day she sends an email to the strike group commander and his chief of staff and says she's got to kind of thread the needle. right? she has to make clear that she was uncomfortable with this. but doesn't want to seem like she's questioning the boss

because you don't do that in the military. so she had this artful way phrasing it. she said, you know, i'm not sure what happened last night would pass the washington post front page test. and this is a thing in the navy, in the federal government that if, you know, if if the washington post writes about her on the front, would you be okay with it? you know that her way of saying, i don't think you'd be okay if the post found out about this and still the boss just kind of ignored her. and sure enough, they swept it under the rug. this was never made. i only found out about it, you know, getting my hands on all this material. so it took 20 years, but it doesn't. the washington post front page test right. but no doubt, if there had been more women in higher positions of leadership back then, i think leonard would have had a much tougher time. you know, i'd be if we didn't mention that. one of the things that leonard francis was doing was using this bribery to get classified information, ship schedules to benefit his company, even details about the missiles at

one point. and so it's not just the scandals we about it, but one that really posed a real national threat. at one point, china was sort of looking around this company if they could acquire information. and so it seems as a reader of, this book you find yourself asking and could could fat leonard scandal happen to the united states navy? has it safeguarded itself enough? you know, one of the i think the things if you read the book and you'll be stunned. i was in reporting it was just how easy it was for leonard to penetrate the navy's counterintelligence defenses and get his hands on classified information over a period of seven years, he was able to get ten different navy officers to leak him classified information secrets on a regular basis. even got a royal australian navy officer who was a liaison, the u.s. seventh fleet, to leak him classified information. he was he was a really, really spy. he was able to cultivate these people and bribe them for.

military secrets, which, you know, as you is just i mean, not today's concerns about classified. it's bad enough, but going back in the navy, everybody knows the phrase loose lips sink ships. you not mess around with giving classified information to. foreign nationals or people aren't to have it. but leonard was able to his hands in this stuff. and so think that's an underappreciated aspect. this whole scandal is what a threat it leonard posed to national security. and to this day it's, unclear to what degree was handed over the or they were hacked or by a hostile foreign power such as china. leonard says he didn't hand over of his military secrets to another country, but he also didn't protect them. he left them strewn about his home and office and printouts. he he kept them unprotected on his company's computer servers. so it had been relatively easy. the chinese government or another country to get their

hands on this stuff. and the navy, frankly, has not wanted to come public, done any sort of public assessment of the damage caused to by this constant leak of classified information. so that's something to this day, we still don't know the extent of it. so you're saying it's very possible it could happen. so i've been the audience and as we've been talking, they've been shaking their heads and mortified, which is what it's like to read the book. and so before i hand the microphone over to our audience which who i know ask fabulous. i have one last one for you. how is the navy to all this? your book, your coverage how has leonard francis reacted to the book or the the navy's kind of adhering to that loose lips sink ship. so its lips are sealed. it hasn't said anything it had you know it gave them every opportunity to comment just like anyone in the book you know made clear what we were going to publish. and the stayed silent. they disputed a single word, but i think they do what the navy

does when there's a storm, they kind of ride it out and hope for a better day to come leonard is happy with the book. i sent him a copy prison and he's very proud that the public learning just how easy it was for him to penetrate u.s. navy and bribe people. he is a very big ego. he's very proud of what he's done and he doesn't shy away from that. and in fact, he likes all the media coverage, book coverage, know all the stories we did in the washington post. he's he's a big fan of that sort of thing. who would have thought, well, i want to invite our audience, you'll see a microphone here to come, step up and ask questions, because we'd love to hear you, because i know we'll have a lot people want to ask a question. if you can keep your question as brief as possible so we get as many people as possible. it's a shocking story indeed. but in in one sense, the import expenses of the fleet are a sort

of potentially a tip of the iceberg. relatively small beer compared to what the navy spends in in capital and in service and, other services. to what extent do you worry that that this is just the tip of the iceberg, that just because the navy is so susceptible, corruption seemingly because they're auditing of their of their contracts is so the ncis doesn't do its job professionally? i mean, could this be almost a systemic issue in the u.s. navy? yeah, it's a great question. so. on one hand, leonard was an exceptional not just anybody could pull off what he did. at the same time, he exposed all these vulnerabilities and, how easy it is to bribe to rig contracts, to overcharge the navy for things and, you know,

the navy had all these systems in place to prevent. right. they had tons of contracting ethics officers, lawyers on paper. this never should have happened. but leonard showed how it was. if you're smart and you understand the system and you bribe people the right time, you know, he was he was an exceptional criminal, but he also definitely exposed that you can have all these on paper to deter corruption, but it still comes down to human nature. and a lot of people were susceptible that. so a great question. first, i want say nancy youssef, i've been listening to you for years, television and on the radio. i can't afford the wall street journal, but you're a terrific reporter. i listen to everything you say. thank. now, as to the navy. have they. i understand. i was in the federal government for 20 years. how covered it up have they done

anything to avoid this in the future. do you think it's effective and has i mean the book has without enough for a little bit at least because i've heard you before has come about stepping in now that now they know the story you know a great questions so the navy to be fair, has taken some steps to tighten up its processes. right. to make sure there's more oversight of contracts, to make sure things are put out, to bid a different manner. so, you know, a lot of the things that leonard exposed they're kind trying to plug those holes afterward. but as i said, you know, do you do about human nature? and i think that's the biggest problem. what this exposed in terms of the navy's culture punish the admirals and and rank and leadership and it's done very little about that in terms of congress. congress has done very little to part of that was the navy learned very early on that they didn't want a repeat of the

tailhook from the 1990s when there were congressional hearings many admirals, the secretary of the navy they lost their job because congress played a very aggressive oversight role. the navy was petrified. this might happen again. so every time members of congress or a congressional would ask the navy to explain themselves about this scandal, when there were bits and pieces coming out, as the navy learned to say, oh we can't possibly comment on that because it's under investigation by the justice department, we wouldn't want to interfere an ongoing investigation. so this was their response time after time, which was there were ongoing investigations, but it gave them a way out to duck questions. so congress honestly didn't do a very good job of playing, exercising their oversight. and that's one reason that, you know, more, pete, more heads didn't roll in the navy and why the navy hasn't felt that pressure to change their culture interesting because they're all over the pentagon thank you.

i was a navy jag in the early nineties up close to 2000 and i made one westpac and a lot of what described doesn't surprise me. i don't find it shocking. junior officers or sailors when you're traveling around the and you're going to a lot of foreign countries and everything and you've maybe never really been outside united states before you do that if someone you into contact with someone who is very pro-american and steeped in american culture and friendly, you're to be very receptive to that because. you're also encountering a lot of mooks and you know just the vibe that you get from a lot of people is very anti-american. so if someone is not that, you're going to immediately your your defenses might drop with regard there being a lot of

involvement, admirals and not very many of them paying a price, that doesn't surprise me because. admirals are general court martial authorities. so they're they're judged by their peers and they're going to get the most sympathetic look at any kind of problems. so on the few occasions when i firsthand aware of one flag officer and looking at another flag conduct and deciding what to do about it, to correct it, it's amazing to me how that review was. but as far as trying to problems just on, i would hope that people would try to be sympathetic with about their rank and file junior officers or sailors any american thrust into other parts of the world trying to do their job. i'm not excusing anything like

letting go of secrets. there's when you would clearly know you're crossing line, but as far as attending a dinner, something like that, it'd be very easy to get confused. right. thank you for that. you know, that rings true with a lot of the interviews i conducted for the book. and certainly want to make two points. one, you know, the vast majority of people, navy aren't like this. you know, like the people who got in trouble or gotten investigated you know, most people have upstanding integrity and the people spotlighting the book are the exception to the rule. but there were still lot of them. and frankly, i found the book is come out that the people get angry reading this book. are navy veterans and others have served in the military because they feel real betrayed all by their shipmates. good evening. bravo, zulu on a tremendous exposé. i'm actually a navy contracting officer, so very interesting read, to say the least, as i was

curious how complicit were the contracting officers in singapore in particular, did they do big rigging change orders, post award look the other way for, rubber stamping invoices, what have you. there is complicit as you can get. so the navy has a contracting officers in singapore has for decades which is in charge as you know putting out for bid contracts for what leonard's company did and approving them and reviewing the bills and leonard figured out early on if he could find the right person, he could bribe them. so there was one supervising a civilian there in the mid 2000s. and leonard took him out for drinks a few times. and right away he figured this was a guy he could do business with. the next time they had drinks, he slipped him an envelope stuffed with $50,000 in cash. right. and said, i want the next contract for the philippine? you know, i want the next contract for australia. so if leonard had to would just it was naked bribery right he

would provide cash product use and he would get the contracting officers to essentially be his employee. and you would you'll see this the book evidence where people his moles whether in the contracting office or navy officers on ships would refer to him as boss right. they would call him boss this boss that they weren't joking it wasn't ironic when they would send him text messages or emails. it was, yes, boss, boss, what else can i do for you? they were literally reporting him. that's the level command he had over people. sometimes he could suddenly get people to look the other way, but a lot of times he just he literally had them on his payroll to say thank you, thank you. i was wondering if you had a statistic or word about of how many got court martialed or convicted federal court, how many fat, hundreds associates got convicted and how many article fifteens were handed out?

yeah, good question. so you'll find those details in the book. but there were about three dozen people charged in federal court with corruption related crimes, including several and several of his lieutenants in his company. there were about another half dozen court martials. and then there were an untold number of people who were investigated by navy under the uniform code of military justice for administrative violations. you're violating ethics rules. and that, by and large, the navy is kept secret about people who have been reprimanded in private. article 15 is also no article. 15 that i'm aware of. thank you, sir. thank i thank you for for this presentation and for doing the book and, for doing the hard reporting. i've been following the story since the beginning. i grew up in the virginia beach. i'm not affiliated with the navy, but have friends who were civilian employees. and if not for the washington post, keeping this story going, i would go and check the virginia pilot every time there

was a development reported in post to go check the local paper in norfolk. not a word about fat. the fat leonard scandal. my, my friends who were high ranking civilian employees navy knew nothing about story because they weren't reading the post so was something. do you have any sense of of why none of the other media outlets were were covering story i know it got a bit in the times but but not lot of widespread coverage and not in navy towns where the population is is ripe for this kind of information. well thank you for noticing the post's coverage my my editor dave fallows, is here and he's one reason that we got so much coverage he but the post's, you know understandably saw this as an accountability story. and it was important to find out what happened in the extent of it. one reason, frankly there wasn't more coverage, i think in other places is a hard story. it was very difficult to get information that, you know, you had to spend days and weeks

really ferreting out details. navy had exactly one press conference in ten years to answer reporters questions about the fact leonard and that was way back in december of 2013, you know and after that nothing and the justice department wouldn't talk except for its case filings court the people under investigation didn't want to talk. leonard's locked for i won't spill all twists and turns in his saga, but you know. so there were limited places you could go to try and find out more information. it was hard, but there were other news organizations that covered it out in san diego, the union-tribune dedicated coverage. nancy wrote about it for the wall street journal. the new york times wrote some about. but, you know, there is an element to i, i personally came a little fixated on it. right. you know, i, i thought it was a it was a great story, an important story. but again, when you're a reporter, you hate being told we

won't we're not going to tell you it's none of your business that just kind fuels the fire a little bit. and fortunately i was worked at a place like the washington post where gave me the time and resources and encouragement to keep digging. and craig, i would note that one of the things that you did was file a lot of freedom of information act to get a lot of the data we have available. so you weren't just reporting but really pushing for information to come out, which was so critical to to people's understanding of this of scandal. i did. and more than three dozen freedom information act requests. and sometimes the navy would. but finally, in the end, they got sick of it. and i got a letter from a high ranking lawyer at the pentagon who said, zip it. we don't want you to file any more of these. we're going to not respond because this is an ongoing case. so is your excuse and even though i argue it's to look at your regulations, say you're supposed to put out information, if a commanding officer or a senior officers found guilty of misconduct internally, but they

just they said, we don't care we're not going to respond. i ended up having to sue under the freedom information act. i filed own lawsuit in federal court. they fought that. so it very, very difficult. they did everything they could to to block it. so i think that's reason to why there wasn't more coverage elsewhere. and then these suggest thank you sir. then these two gentlemen have our last two questions. yes, the scandal went on for so long. what i'm curious about is why were there no whistleblowers of notable, you know, so great question. and in the book, you'll hear some stories of some whistleblowers and, some who did try and do the right thing. and invariably, most of them would get squashed and again, like i described before, you had these in malls and people called boss. so if there was a whistleblower, usually they were lower ranking people a supply officer who would notice the bill was was three times what it should be. and they would confront leonard over this or would report it up the chain of command.

they were almost always silenced, squashed. and there's one great running story about, one of leonard's antagonists over many years who's described in book. and leonard saw this guy, who was a captain in the navy as a real threat to his because he understood what was going. and there's this real cat and mouse game playing where leonard was constantly to squash the whistle blower whistle blowers. and by and large, you always succeeded for the most part. but that's a constant tension. leonard again, he was a very, very criminal, and he his tentacles throughout the navy, and he's always good at sussing out whenever was a threat and extinguishing it. so there were people who tried to do the right thing. it wasn't that there weren't, but by and large, got the best them. did the navy use mental health? excuse for these whistle blowers? no, i didn't they just. but, you know, the navy has different ways of making people keep quiet. you know, leonard was also he

was so well connected at the upper ranks of the navy that he would invariably an admiral friend or a or a high ranking civilian to get somebody lower ranking silent. so he knew how to work the system that way. okay. thank you. good job. thank, sir. i have a sorry, i have a quick question. i saw that about a month. five navy officials, their cases, their cases were dismissed by a judge how fair do you think the justice department been in all of this? that's a great question. you're clearly a very smart young man. so just department did recently they forced to take five cases of individuals who, had already pleaded guilty to fraud and corruption and had to throw them out and let these people plead guilty instead to misdemeanors. and the reason for this is prosecutorial misconduct.

so you'll find details in the book but leonard was such a good comment it wasn't just that he con the navy. he con the justice department. he became a cooperating witness in the justice department, got overconfident in trying to prosecute some of these cases. and they committed misconduct and, didn't afford a fair trial that has caused all the to come unraveled, at least to come under new scrutiny. so the irony is, in the end, despite this being the biggest most extensive, extensive corruption scandal in navy history, a lot of the people are going to get away with it. well, i want to thank you, craig, not just for this talk and not just for this book, but for really committing to covering this because you understood, i think, better than most important, this was to to our job as reporters, but also for the public's right to know. so i just want to ask our audience, i'm going to invite everyone to come and get their copy of the book sign, but i just want ask you to help me.

thank craig, for his work on this topic, not only today. over the past decade. and thanks to you, nancy, it's been real pleasure and privilege having this