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let it be an arms race is on offense. very dramatic development only personally and going to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successfully very critical time time to sit down and talk ah. 2 2 we've all seen the news since late 2022, that president donald trump had classified documents in his home in mara lago florida. and just as democrats began gloating and talking about whether or not the former president would be prosecuted, classified documents were found in president biden's home in delaware, and in the washington dc office that he used in the years between being vice president and being elected president. former vice president mike pence then admitted that he too had classified documents in his home. so what happens next to they all get prosecuted? should they be prosecuted?

i'm john kerry. aku welcome to the whistle blowers. ah, it seems that all the talk in washington these days is about classified documents. who has them? why are they retained and what should be done about it? but those are the easy questions. the more difficult questions, concerns why the american government produces more than 100000000 classified documents every year. how many of those documents are properly and legitimately classified and why over the years has the mishandling of those documents where they're properly classified or not? ended up being equated with espionage, one of the gravest crimes with which an american can be charged will classified documents in the possession of former leaders. just lead to the next step in draconian national security punishments. or is this an opportunity to review the system and return some sanity to the classification process?

we're happy to have with us just lynn redock. jazlyn is the executive director of the whistleblower and source protection program at expose facts in washington. she's also a former justice department ethics attorney and a whistleblower in her own right. it's great to have you. just thanks for joining us. thank you for having me. let's start with these classified documents that have been found in the homes and offices of donald trump. joe biden and mike pence, do we even know with these documents are, are they highly classified national security secrets, or are they just routine diplomatic messages that are classified only out of force of habit? what do we know? we don't know. i mean it, the fact that they are classified indicates that they are either secret, top, secret or top secret sensitive compartment and information that we have no idea of what they, what they relate to, what the subject matter, isabelle. and given that we have a huge problem with over classification,

in this country, it is entirely possible that they are very innocuous documents that were just stamped classified as, as a matter of routine. just in the interest of transparency, i want to say that you and i are not only friends, but you are also one of my attorneys in my own national security case in 2012. in my case, my judge made a ruling that had a major impact on the way the courts look at cases like this. she said that the definition of espionage was very simply providing national defense information to any person, not entitled to receive it. with that definition, a person could accidentally commit espionage. for example, if a person leaves classified documents in a restaurant and somebody else in the restaurant sees them and reads them, the person who accidentally left the documents there has technically committed espionage. if a person has a conversation, let's say with

a journalist and says something that could be construed is classified or is based on classified information, even if it's just analysis that would be espionage. with that said, we all know that washington runs on leaks. so what's the end game here? just lock it, everybody up for espionage? well, the people getting locked up for espionage are not the leakers who have political power. so in other words, joe biden and mike pence and donald trump are certainly not going to be locked up for revealing classified information. just like c i a director betray us was not locked up or, nor was c. i a director panetta. so the people with power and prestige are safe. it's the lower level employees who are going to get skewered under the espionage act. if they disclose classified information, even if there is

a compelling public interest reason for doing so. when i was working at the cia and this was in the mid 19 nineties, a woman i sat next to was having an affair with a journalist. in the course of that affair, she told him something that was classified, and he repeated it on the air on cnn. a cia investigation led directly back to her and she admitted that she had revealed the information. she was suspended without pay for $4.00 weeks and was not allowed to be promoted for one year. that was it. today she would face at least 10 years in prison for doing the same thing. how did we get to this point? and why do you think that happened? you? i think we got to this point in part because again, there's a huge problem after 911 with rampant over classification, which makes it much easier to accidentally leak something classified, especially when things are not route keenly classified at all or sometimes

unclassified. in one, in one agency, but classified in another. and then i also think we got here because brock obama thought for some reason it was a good idea to dust off the espionage act of 1917 and use it on whistleblowers. and, and, and that was very disappointing from someone who was supposed to be at the transparency president and supporting federal workers and that kind of thing. but it unleashed what is now a normalization of going after sources and whistle blowers criminally. and there are a number of criminal laws that could be applied, but the espionage act is by far the most brutal, near the end of 2022 representative ill on omar sponsored a bill in the house of representatives that would have completely revamped and rewritten the espionage act, so that we wouldn't have cases like mine or like jeffrey sterling's or reality

winners. that bill went nowhere. it didn't even make it out of subcommittee. do you think that there is any mood on capitol hill to rewrite the espionage act? was written in 19 said not holding my breath, yet they're high level cronies because there's only used against against low level government officials. specifically ones who have revealed information that evidence is illegality or things that are embarrassing to the gover. government like torture, secret surveillance war crimes. those are the kinds of leaks they got prosecuted. and they are also some of the darkest most controversial programs in u. s. modern history. one of the most important sticking points when thinking about the espionage act is the absence of something called an affirmative. defense. whistleblowers are not legally allowed to either use as a defense to stand up in court and say that what they did they did in the public

interest. i blew the whistle on the c, i is torture program, which was an illegal program. the judge didn't care ad snowden told us that the u. s. government was spying on american citizens, which was illegal. it didn't matter. the heroic whistleblower daniel hale told us that the u. s. military's drone program was illegally killing scores of innocent people including children. he's now in a maximum security prison. why are the government and the courts so afraid of an affirmative defense? the ill hon. omar bill would have allowed for one, but it died without ever coming up for a vote. i think the government loves a strict liability law that renders any defendant without a defense because they don't have to even try to make the case. all they have to show is that a disclosure did or did not happen. and unlike every other law in the criminal system where your intent would be relevant, oh, you know,

the government said we, you know, we'd never tortured anyone, but i hope torture. someone or we did torture people. i mean, that's why they don't want there to be any kind of intent and miserable by. they don't want to have any kind of public interest defense because you would actually understand why people are being charged with the very draconian espionage act at you know, and it, having a strict liability law just makes it easy. could it be a slam dunk cases? virtually impossible to defend one of these cases because they take place largely in secret. and again, you don't have any kind of meaningful defense. you can raise an impact. your intent only becomes relevant at sentencing. meaning after you've been convicted, we're speaking with attorney activist and whistleblower jaslyn rate act about classified documents and the espionage act. we're going to take

a short break and come right back. stay with us. 2 with oh, hungary has been a member of the european union and nato since 1999 during the 1st post soviet wave of nato's eastward expansion. numbers sailors, callo, yesterday may longer thanks. his dear landmark brought to a c. like by now as a crunch. it's so easy, so mega me. if so would you peg a sure zak bud lu merged? would be sure every mya still more. gina beach ross. you but i see australia wash roy a mug. woochie strongly in the early ninety's hungry was

a country with the worst view of russia due to historical disagreements left over from the soviet union. so when you're younger in the soil is wanting is someone like yours, but i don't know what i see if you brought by somebody in the compared to political more than as what i see is great. and i did it at the political, those with, ah, lisa hunter, russian state a little narrative. i've stivers on the north landscape div asking him the american house southland and of a group in the 55 when. okay, so mine is 25 and speaking with we will van in the european union, the kremlin media machine restate on russia today and support

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ah welcome back to the whistleblowers, i'm john carrie aka were speaking with attorney activist and whistleblower jeslane redock. she's the executive director of the whistleblower and source protection organization at expose facts in washington. d. c. great to have you back, jess. much of this discussion will inevitably come back to julian assange. you've been intimately involved in supporting assange and the work that he's done with wiki leaks. assange released evidence of american war crimes committed in iraq as well as lots and lots of diplomatic cables that arguably should not have been classified in the 1st place. yet, the u. s. government has pursued him now for well over a decade. walk us through the slippery slope. that is the ongoing prosecution of julian assange. many of us maintained that if a sanchez prosecuted, every national security journalist in america will be open for prosecution. i think

it's even broader than that. to the extent that a sons is being prosecuted, it makes our own journalists who were doing it, practicing journalism and branding stories in countries that have really authoritarian secrecy rules. subject to those secrecy rules. i mean, can you see, i mean turkey imprisoning one of our journalists because we violated one of their secrecy rules for iran. i'm poor iraq. i mean it's, it's frightening it, and it's just such a, a dangerous precedent that actually ends up apparently any kind of person in including foreign correspondent for violating other countries. secrecy boss. so and, and i think it also creates a very chilling preston because people are already very skittish about reporting on classified information. the national security beat is a treacherous one,

and i think people will be even more lockton a both the journalist side and the source side up to, to talk about the stuff in the government. once it that way. better to have people shaking in their boots and airing on the side of not reporting something than bringing out any of the us as dirty laundry, or even worst. it's illegal conduct. just one of the things that disturbs me is the fact that julian assange has not had the support of most of the major news outlets here in the united states. there was an open letter that the new york times signed along with the guardian and police and the lamond, and a couple of other papers. but after that, we didn't see similar announcements from the washington post and the wall street journal and cnn. why is it that these outlets are not jumping to julian sanchez? defense when, if julian is, is convicted,

they'll certainly be the next to be targeted. you know, i think the statement that came out, you know, with the very newspapers was a little cute little a lot too late. and the, it is disappointing me the unwillingness to coalesce around assange in the mainstream media in even the alternative media. but i think that's because he has been so vilified over the last number of years that it's hard for people, you know, whatever you think of a font as a person. people, people are care concerning him and basing their lack of support on that rather than on the larger ramifications that this decision will have in terms of effecting all journalists and the u. s. has done such a great job mirroring him in every possible way, including it, with allegations about russia, stuff that's not in the indictment bio, by the way, all the stuff in the indictment dates back to 2010 era. but i, you know,

i wish, i think these people like to say, oh, he's not a publisher. he's not a journalist, but you know, again, creating that kind of litmus dust. he, he's, he is a publisher. he is a journalist, as a blocker, technically could be prosecuted under the espionage act. any joe schmo who shares a new newspaper article with someone else that happens to can in classified is technically in violation of this law. you know, i think they are trying to authorize him and paint him as not a real journalist and a renegade. and oh, he was playing footsie with the russians. and oh, stuff happened in sweden and, and everything that has to do with his person and not his profession. and it's really slimy. i think people are sophisticated enough to know better the ones who are doing that. but even this, oh, he's not

a real journalist. that's neither here nor there when it comes to the espionage act . so i, you know, i, i wish more people would see good just disastrous preston, that this is going to create that really is gonna imperil all investigative journalism in the national security arena. just do you believe that julian assange can get a fair trial in the eastern district of virginia, where his jury would be made up of people who work for, or people who have relatives or friends who worked for the cia, the f. b. i the pentagon, the department of homeland security or intelligence community contractors. i think it's impossible for him to get a fair trial no matter where he is, because he's being charged under the espionage act. but you bring up a good point that he has been indicted in the most conservative court in the entire

country. that is the bashed and it's the center of the c i a, the, an essay, the f, b i all these intelligence agencies. so it would hardly be a friendly jury pool, and again, it's known as a rocket docket because it just jams cases through and it is a known as a brute old the most conservative court in the country, which is saying a lot the case. so i eat the fact that they strategically decided to do that shows, you know, just let us zation of those and how much it's about politics and now about any personal misty, because we see classification classified information every single day. every time we pick up the washington post, the new york times, you know, classified information is published every day, but clearly r u. s. has had it sites on getting a funds for a very long time. so that i think has been very short sighted in terms of the

deleterious consequences. this is going to have on all journalists, you work closely with myriad national security whistle blowers, the costs of whistle blowing continue to increase, but people continue also to come forward. whistleblowers know the cost that they'll likely pay, but they continue to come forward and to call out evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, illegality, and threats to the public health and public safety. why do you think that is? why do they continue to speak out in the face of potentially life changing retaliation? i think a lot of them don't think that they're going to be retaliated against because in their minds they're doing the right thing. they're telling the truth, i mean, look at reality, she told me it made, you know, a truthful, factual, accurate representation that russian was trying to interfere in the elections. he both think they're not going to be punished for telling the truth. why would you be

punished for revealing torture, which is illegal, unconstitutional, and unethical? so that's part of it a bit, but the other part is also that courage is contagious, and most people do have a conscience. and the people going after the whistleblowers are the moral invertebrates in this country who are self starving and don't really care about the headlight interest. so i think people, by and large, they want to be able to sleep at night. they want to believe their country will do the right thing or correct the wrong thing. finally, just tell us how drone whistleblower daniel hale is doing. you're one of his attorneys. we were both in the courtroom during his sentencing. when a relatively enlightened judge gave him a sentence that was significantly shorter than what the justice department was asking for. the judge also recommended that daniel be sent to a low security prison, where he could also receive treatment for a medical condition. but the bureau of prisons sent him instead to a maximum security penitentiary. and even then they put him in

a restrictive communications management unit. is that justice department policy? was he doing? despite all of that horrible stuff he just laid out. he is very resilient, grounded thoughtful, young man, and he's doing as well as can be expected to judge actually yes. was very sensitive to the fact that daniel was struggling with p t a he and anxiety and depression and wanted him and a medical facility where he could get some therapeutic intervention. and unfortunately, that doesn't happen. i mean, they're only to see amuse country and they were built to house terror. so again, most people in there are in there for life. so it's, he have a lot of restrictions that even death row inmates don't have restrictions on his

communications that even people in the super max don't have, they can communicate, they can write letters back and forth with people with him. every single letter that comes in is xeroxed and he only gets a copy of it if he gets it at all. it's very hard to schedule a phone call even as his lawyer. so it has been very frustrating and overly punitive. but unfortunately, you're the judge had made a recommendation that he be placed at a medical facility, but it was not an order. and so of course, the bureau of prisons took advantage of that and put him in the c. m. u. and i said, why on earth is he in a c, m u. and he said because his crime involved a communications based offense. and i said his crime with communicating with a journalist. so think deeply about that, that that's the reason the communication, the

a sense that he communicated with the journalist not with a spy, not with a half to 4 in agency, nothing like that. but with a regular check analyst, i'd like to thank our guest attorney activist and whistleblower jaslyn rate act for joining us. and thanks to our viewers. former us president theodore roosevelt once said that quote, patriotism means to stand by the country. it does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he, himself stands by the country. and it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth whether about the president or about any one else on quote. let's hope that more and more people are able to come forward and do exactly that. i'm john kerry aku and you've been watching the whistleblowers until next time. 2 2 2 ah,

quad doors, westerly. i'm in be thought on. i mean, our heart of mitchell was how your zip was throttled. when i was a hair dresser, a bus driver, a sales person, anyone could become a victim. ah, that's our private negotiators. first appeared with steel. wooden board to see mister russell noon, a rumble. okay. not a necessity. a minute more your will be up, but i will try this name on that. on the global dilemma, a soon won't be feasible missing on from the yet could be a study sports took over the serious me cooper, venus. yeah. this is who was with the little girl this quiz in the will go

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it all about it all to anybody phase the only city in p jaw. look at in the book. they incentives and the cigarette a few color revel. notions is one among several of means to reach the goal of conquering foreign lands and bringing them onto the help of us west economic interests. people think that it, i do not see that's what everybody did. okay. yeah, we were training coral activate sol, suite. that's a little bit soft by let me get to the final goal of these thing. revolutions to ensure that there are no independent players in the world anymore with

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wreckage on the streets in suit down including body strewn across them. not being seen, despite agreed upon truce in the militarized conflict, which is now into its 3rd week heavy exclusions on flashes continue to rock. the capitol partners with north korea uses the u. s. m. so all of this stabilizing the korean peninsula. after the 2 on the left plan to dock us nuclear arm submarine inside korea.