that he had contracted with someone to kill his wife. i was working that case with a municipal agency, the federal police department, and i shared information to the, the, under the exceptions to the law. and they fired me because they say that those exceptions to the law don't exist. that's their entire case. the 2nd problem was they didn't like an email communication and a facebook post that i made as a union steward on official time under the direction of the union. good career. and so the, the 2 aspects to the, to my term, to december's termination are, are cheaper toners. and that's, that's something that, that kind of, you have to highlight about to be a, you're a lot of people talk about the incompetence. and they do it with a kind of, you know, the beginning to be insulting or to take a job at the da da is truly in comp attempt at every level. and it's,

it's worth taking a moment to just think about that and understanding that they can't even abuse their authority in a competent manner. it's not like whatever the street crow copper, some of the other people you've had on the show legitimately, with getting disappeared in a very precise and tact lemaire via can't do that. they'll try it, but they're going to mess it up and they're going to leave a paper trail and there's going to be an email or, you know, something of the kind because these are the we have. uh well when i say we, i'm talking about to be have promoted these and confident players to higher and higher levels. and then the echo chamber sort of seals that in. and you have, this is true, the state of it's, it's like the stand for present experiment except right. just you're not as, as out of hand maybe or more out of hand. in some respects, one of the results of whistle blowing is the isolation and the lonely that's,

that comes along with it. what was it like for you? you were forced onto the desk duty, how did your friends and colleagues at the v a respond where they supportive. did you have any other support from inside the organization? oh, yeah. so again, i, this is sort of like my, my 3rd life as a copyright. so i have a friendship network and i got some really, really good advice all the way back in 1988, senior deputy at the sheriff's department. i worked for a told me straight out. he said to him, if you're going to do this job, get to get a hobby that doesn't have anything to do with law enforcement and get friends that aren't cops. and there was something i took to heart and i just like cherry that through the years. so i kind of had this network established a prior to that, but i'm pretty well known. and so when they transferred me out of police services in into the transportation division, there were a lot of people who found me on the side walk away from india where they couldn't

be overheard offered their support, their gratitude i, i'll get a facebook messages from time to time just your notes of encouragement and they are absolutely critical. jackie, derrick wrote this wonderful book about the psychological effects. yes. of the read seems to be subcategories, but every single piece of blower should immediately fall under that. ca, to like without question, somebody to change them all that we need because of that psychological damage. yeah, i'm just fortunate enough that i planned for the the, that was, that was really very forward thinking were speaking with the department of veterans affairs. was the blower, tim petoskey, about problems inside the sprawling federal government. we're going to take a short break and come back with more of this conversation, which is stressful. say, tune. 2 2 2 2

2 2 2 the the so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy even foundation, let it be an arms race is on all sides. very dramatic. the only personally,

i'm going to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very critical of time. time to sit down and talk. 2 welcome back to the whistle blowers. i'm john curry onto we're speaking with tim petoskey, whistleblower from the us department of veterans affairs. tim, thanks again for being with us. is always tim frank, sir, because the famed whistle blower from the early 19 seventy's new york police department is a friend of mine. one of the things frank has always been very clear about is that corruption only exists in police departments when police leaders allow it to exist . frank also has been clear that he had very little support from other police officers when he made his revelations. you've said that other police officers in

the va are afraid, and when a whistle blower engages the da's leadership, the va attacks, the officer. these attacks tend to be effective. and the majority of cops are afraid of losing their jobs. and it being attacked in the same way as the whistleblower is attacked. i can tell you that this is also true and national security. the goal of those protecting the wrongdoers is to frighten, would be whistle blowers so that they remain silent. tell us about what you went through immediately after you made your revelations. what was it like inside the va? sure. well, i think the worst was, was definitely um, at the very beginning when joe murphy and i made our original disclosures they, uh they were, they were using the was our traffic cameras to follow as to and from work with the intent to harassing us about you know, showing up on time or not um, anything that they could fabricate. uh,

they attempted to besmirch jose professional reputation when he applied for a p as in an attempt to abrogate his security clearance of the anything you can think of at some point in time did they? i went for an entire month without pay months because they couldn't get their pay worked out in my i was the only $1.00 by the way. right. but they pay me for an entire. um you said uh something and one of your other uh, um cas about integrity versus honesty and integrity being something about self and honesty but you know something we project for others. i'd also like to dovetail off of that and suggest that there's an institutional integrity. right, that the integrity of the individuals in those leadership positions bring, which is what i think frank circle was going, which by ways one of my 1st insurers and this thing about intrinsic value and agencies professional integrity and the intrinsic value. but that breeds for the

agency or lack there of and that's exactly this, this situation with the da, where they attacked me. they attacked joe, they tried to project that abuse of authority in a grandiose manner with this sort of a chest pounding. but what we can do to wait with, which is the audacity in my termination case, that is, that is precisely what they are trying to transmit to the workforce. what's a sit in the back of us and shut off. right? and we've seen that in the unit number of our, our stores have resigned. we are having all kinds of difficulties in getting that regular support. and we've got numerous cases that the federally relations authority that are focused back on the agents. and i have personally one upwards, i think either 4 or 6 unfair labor practices while from the since january of this year. because the agency has been so enfolded by my termination. while you're there

seems to be a theme here where you should be able to rely on your, on your union to support you. and it's not just you, it's, it's both inside and outside government. and there they're just really isn't much in the way of support from the union. one of your colleagues also told the media that revelations that the 4 of you made were not taken seriously and were not acted upon. usually that's not the case. usually they'll target you try to get rid of you and then quietly implement the changes that you demanded in the beginning. why would the officials engage in a cover up when it would be so much easier just to work with you and make these changes? sure, well it gets back to that, that incompetence, right? is that so steep? they don't know how to do that. but there's also layers, you know, like in the, in the, in my world back in the day, i do. all right, and we've been around for

a little while anyway, back in the map days and you had the, the acetate and used to do the layers. right. and you build up a picture, right? so one of those layers is this thing about some of the dangers within the hospital setting, then the grandiose, but what am referencing here are actual serial killers that operate inside of medical facilities of all types. now there's a wonderful book by bruce sacrament called behind the murder turn, that focuses specifically on the da's problem in this regard. and one of the things that she touches on in his book is that the serial killers are operated to be a do. so at the age that are known to have a 41, police forces, while staff, please cetera. so this is in, there's been significant videos and things like that. this is a 4 story or hospital with ministers. the last thing they want is for something like this to get out. and then they have to deal with the kind of panic that comes

from it. but as you know, getting ahead of the story is how you deal with those critical elements. but the so incompetent, they have nothing in their toolbox to deal with that complex reality. and they can't even handle something like that. in c, i see. right. dr. seattle was one of the only organizations in the state of washington habits terminals because of the incompetent handling of the and see i see system, right. it's similar to walk in the door. i'd say, if you've ever worked with these people in the united state of washington there, and we tried to, they get, they tell you what they want, how they want it when they want it. it's, you know, i love my brothers and sisters in the infantry but isn't an infantry guy could get this done right? but the v a can't. right? and so how are they going to deal with this incredibly complex situations that you do have to deal with? is the hospital administrator when your competency level is so low, you can't handle, you know, something like making sure there's enough paper projections. me. one of the tactics

that the v a used against you and against the other whistle blowers is, is through the use of your medical records, your medical records were illegally access to hundreds of times. i was shocked when i read that in the case of one of your colleagues, he stopped demand for speeding on the grounds of a v, a facility. that man happened to be a v, a psychologist, and the psychologist threatened the officer over the speeding ticket. in the end, the officers medical records were also illegally accessed 100 times and he was unable to be promoted. presumably you have legal representation to try to guide you through this awful experience. but what are your lawyers say about this kind of illegal retaliation? when, when a psychologist, because you're giving him a, a speeding ticket, can pull your medical records and leak them and use them against you. it's so patently illegal. how do you deal with for even worse than that because that

particular case that you're talking about, that psychologist was of a clinical psychologist. not a forensic psychologist. we have, i said, estimates every year. they're done by francis ecologist, not kind of a psychologist and the clinical psychologist had to get sort of google boy into the system to even look at that officers case to begin with, let alone accessing his, his records and things like that. but one of the things that we've learned with, i've learned definitely over my time with the va, we already cabinet level agency. and that's one of the things that kind of it's brought me up short. i don't know how many times and it's just taking me, it's taking me quite a while sometimes to wrap my head around it because we are on the same tier is the department of justice. mm hm. um, you know, i looked a little bit of tag, you're starting from the, from the c a and i it, it blew my hair back. but one of the things in listening to your story is that the, the v thinks they are the see i, it, they believe,

and they act with that kind of a das city. as if they can just make up something and who's going to make us do anything different and to a large degree there, right? we do not have to follow the department of justice policy or direction. we're a cabinet level cr agency. and so does the v a have to follow the law? i something i posed to congress all the time because if you don't have an enforcement model, you don't have a wall. if there's nothing there that says dell shuttle or i will spank you, the va is just going to do what about right, right. ways to save the c a all the time. it's better to add now and ask for forgiveness later. so you, i may have those words, right, so you mentioned earlier in the show that you're no longer at the v a i'm i'm hoping that you still have

a whistle blower case pending. so where does your case stand now? it seems like there have been no real changes. no, no interest from capitol hill, no satisfaction for the whistle blowers what happens next for you? so because on the union representatives, the national via council sent me a lawyer and we are taking my cases to arbitration. now the reason why is because the merits, as the protection board decides 97 percent of the cases for the agency 97 . wow. percent are they were trying to justify that last session before congress and their, their lot logical reasoning if you can call it that is, is, is, is cartoonish as well. so my cases are set for later this year. and the end of the is going to have to stand in front of an arbiter and an attempt to justify what their position is. however, their attorney is a board certified. and so if their,

if the end of the case is going to continue to be that the law isn't the law, that's going to be a real string outcome for that particular lawyer. but the highlight that i want to make here is that if it were not for arbitration, i just be getting the water. right. because it has to be isn't going to help me. right? they're going to decide for the agency and this has happened to other vehicle the sprague, they've got to work their way through the system. you know, and i think you've experienced this yourself. there is a cost benefit analysis rate. and if the agency can run that cost up, at some point in time, those offices are going to walk away because it's just, it's to monetary, really expensive. it's too emotionally expensive, it's to psychologically expensive. and to be a rest. that's how they've gotten away with this. um for so many tickets. just crazy. well i, i would like to thank our guest in petoskey, not just for being here with us today, but for allowing us to be his 1st interview. thanks for that and things to our viewers for joining us. sometimes when a police officer is given maximum power,

he bears minimum responsibility. that's why it's incumbent on the rest of us to support those brave officers who stand off in the face of waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality. they are the ones to keep the honest people honest. they are the ones who eventually we'll re route out corruption. they're the ones who are deserving of our support and our respect. i'm john kerry echo, thanks for watching the whistle blowers until next time. 2 2 2 2 2 the near search of a lot right now who me up. i give a shit a possession associated with the local church. so certificate of boulevard too much and watch coolers. rates was a job project,

so they don't fit in the cause of the room and attend the want to know how i thought of all our other component of the suffering needs flu. presto. yesterday i just wanted to just kind of charlotte, i'm with a number or something else. let me put this thing up. so let me just confirm that i will start following charter decrypt daughter. get to a new new north sheriff service and love screwed good from my baby. it's a story capable disease. my good idea. did you validate the the letter? i'll just,

i'll just go back to you because i've spoken of shouldn't this but don't even get off the physical to get up to seals. this will be the most serious close. i use this key members here when there was a resume and they did it through when williams saying, if they have come here, my name is nice, provide me the message or cuz i need for someone to bring, i need ship escalating somebody to computers. this one is correct. okay. let me ask you what we'll do is we'll do a split system all the for any kids of those who used to live with the blooming to too much to put them so. so here through the

the hi, i'm rick sanchez. i've been doing news down for 30 years and 2 languages all over the world here in the united states. interviewed for president, spending a $1000000000.00 business. i believe news to just be honest and direct and impactful, and this, by golly, is called direct impact. the mr. program is about the leak, but not necessarily about the link itself. rather the way this leak has been covered. i'm sure you've heard of it. somebody got ahold of some classified documents regarding the war and ukraine, and other things. the documents are chuck full of all kinds of fascinating know,

or the news more the stuff that we don't know about, but probably should know about what all that. how does the media handle this story? watch what is your confidence level of the pentagon being able to track down how these documents are linked in the 1st place? so much for fascinating information that we should know about. right. ok, for starters, i should let you know that me. hi, rick sanchez. i'm all 4 legs. why? because i'm a journalist. i am a journalist, i'm a reporter. you see my job is to have an adversarial relationship with the government, our government, actually all governments. my job is to find out what they are doing, that they may not want me to know or for you to know. their job is to make sure

that i don't get that information so that i don't know and you don't know. see, this is what's called a healthy system of checks and balances that are supposed to be working in this country of ours. and when it's done properly, we get the right results. for example, during the war in vietnam, the media found out about things. the government was doing lies exaggerations, manipulations through leaks. they found out and thank god it helped us put an end to the vietnam war. despite the lies. yes, lies the boat, henry kissinger, and president richard nixon. we're trying to get away with it. the top 10 name is now come out as the possible source of the time is spent again, documents. it is out of daniel ellsberg, pharmacy analyst for the defense in the states department. prepared to answer the consequences of these precision and re. kissinger said that daniel ellsberg was the most dangerous man in america. he had to be stopped. someone helped us avoid

a disaster, maybe even a nuclear war in that case, leaks. and the power loss, the american people saying enough is enough. there's a documentary in fact that's out there right now. i think it's on netflix. you might want to look for it. it shows just how close we came to letting the lies when called the movement and the madman, nixon's the madman. by the way, i would encourage you to check it out it's, it's that good. and now once again, we find ourselves in the midst of a powerful weak. that gives us information that we previously did not know. and this one is about the war and ukraine. and what it really is is exactly what we as citizens are supposed to know. for example, if our government has troops on foreign soil fighting a war, shouldn't whole fact. of course, we should start money could even be our son or our daughter over there. we better know the principle of

a democracy is that we are transparent and that we share that type of information with ourselves. so barring, for example, you know, secret on how to make a nuclear bomb or some other highly secretive information by giving away the position that a soldier is in or that type of stuff, something that could endanger our lives. or maybe we will national security, whatever that is. everything else is fair game or should be fair get what we learned from these documents. and this latest case that no one knew about beforehand is, for example, what we've learned that quote, a small contingent of less than $100.00 special operations personnel from nato members, france, america, britain, and lot via were active in ukraine. yes. meaning, american soldiers could have been in ukraine and we didn't know about. so what that says is that we now have boots on the ground in ukraine. does that mean we're actively engaged?

does that mean sort of where we're fighting russian troops, americans? my god. if that's the case, as an american citizen, we have a right to know the answers to the questions. and i would say good members of the media would want to know that as well, right? well, apparently not the, apparently they're, they're more interested in the whole list, the information which is a story. but that's not all. it's almost as if they're more interested in representing and defending our government. then they are and representing and defending us. you and me look at these stories about the lake this kind of guy leak represents the largest breach of u. s. military intelligence. and roughly a decade. the vast majority of the documents that have been put out there are about ukraine and also expose the extent to which do us has been able to gather intelligence on russia. there too many people with too much access to too much

information about guard rails and safeguards. and i was left with more questions than answers to talk a little more about this. we're joined by the host of the whistle blowers, john kerry, uncle john. the 1st of all, let me just say it's a pleasure to talk to you places online. really somebody in the invitation you, you're. busy the guy who represents this conversation that i just had a moment ago, probably as well as anybody else can. thank you and did it. i don't know if you got the gist of what i was trying to say be on the link itself and all the information . it seems to me that we have not made a conscious effort in the media to try and find out what do we know here that we need to report? you're absolutely right. you're absolutely right. the american people own this information. they have a right to know what the government is doing in their name. and the only way we

find this stuff out is when somebody leaks it, for one investigative journalist is able to do his or her job and develops the information on his own. and i mentioned the vietnam moore, there have been times in our history where we have learned things that we needed to know that have kind of changed the course of history. that's right. or this documentary, and several books that i've been reading recently made me of that. i'm not saying he would have done it. nixon was crazy enough to actually use nukes, to make sure we want the warrant. vietnam actively considered it. mm hm. the only reason we know that is because thank god somebody started finding out and reporting that stuff, right. which scared us enough to say, hey, what are we doing here? and we put an end to it. well, whether, whether you're talking about afghanistan or a rock or, or now, you know the situation in ukraine, we have to ask ourselves, what are we really doing there? and we need the media to ask those questions rather than share lead. that's right. because that's what they're doing, that's exactly what they're doing. any of this, this goes to the demise of investigative journalism in the united states. i get

that the news industry has changed. i get that, that paper hard copy. newspapers are having a tough struggle for me, but the 1st thing that they cut out was investigative journalism. and rather than developing sources inside the national security structure, they've come to the point where they just just whatever press release the c i a, the pentagon gives them. and then that's the news, by the way, this kid john picture is his name. he was part of the national guard fund. he was in a chat room for gamers and in that chat room, apparently, that's where he devolves to all this information. you have to ask yourself how he had the secret security clearance anyway, but i guess he worked in the i t department, so i gave them security clearance by the way because it got stupid. yeah. but the some, the situation is the same at the c. busy at the state department and it's kind of gone where you've got to have somebody that has access to everything because they have to have the ability to actually send out and receive everything. so they get

those high clearances. they're not supposed to read the documents. they're just supposed to process them toys, but you're going to be some candidates hired. he's an i t guy, you know, he knows how to fix computers. right? real smart kid, you know one of those because a lot of them, oh yeah, is he gets a job they high or they give them security clearance and he's not supposed to read them. but he has access to the parts of the world. the most sensitive reporting that the american government has, including personnel actions. you know, if you've got an officer, let's say, here is c, i a station chief overseas. and you've got an officer who is a drunk or who beats his wife, or who might be working for a foreign government. yeah. you have to report that they headquarters of course, in an ice only channel or you're not a tech guy. you don't know how to send that. you have to have somebody on staff who's gonna actually physically send it physically put it in the encryption machine and send it to headquarters. that's the 18 year old kid with a high security clear this is this kid. i mean,

he didn't do it because he wanted to change the world. he's not like, uh, you know, some of the others. we've seen that you do that you talk about on your show, whistle blowers. this guy's not whistleblower. this guy says no guy who is just putting up some, crept in front of the front, and that's really the critical issue here. he's not a whistle blower, he's a leak or there's a legal definition of whistle blowing. and forgive me if i keep repeating myself, right? that's okay. but the definition was, the blowing is bringing to light. any evidence of waste, fraud, abuse illegality, or threats to the public health or public safety. okay. now the reason that a whistleblower does that is supposed to be irrelevant if for example, chelsea manning revealed the murder videos. uh huh. right. whatever her, her justification was, is irrelevant. the fact that she did it is what's relevant in this case. what jack to share revealed is fascinated yes and it's important i want to know.