 by legislating alone or by sanctioning or approving certain operations, by approving funds for certain operations they also can serve the interest of another country by compromising and sacrificing our foreign policy, our troops, our people’s lives.
Horton: Again, this is where we get to that line, and you’re right, it’s certainly a gray thing when you talk about the law and policy. And when policy is to break the law, then how is it supposed to work in any of this? It all kind of falls apart. But there clearly is a difference though – right? – between making an agreement to commit a felony with agents of the Mossad versus being just a run of the mill Congressman who knows he basically has to vote pro-Israel to keep his job.
Edmonds: Well sure. But even if they are not engaged in espionage activities directly. Let’s say with Tom Lantos that was not the case. Tom Lantos never considered himself to be an American. Never did. This was a known fact by all the agents, not only from the Turkish department but from the Israeli counterintelligence desk, again, which was all operated from the same Washington field office. But outside that you had congressman, not only to get these funds but to get them illegally. And also let certain facilitators lobby people to be intermediaries to launder money and get rid of their footprint so that they can get that foreign money even though these Congressional people knew it was coming directly from let’s say foreign governments. So knowingly accepting that it’s either considered not only unethical but criminal because the reason they’re trying to get it off the footprint is because it is criminal.
Horton: Yeah. Well and for example after David Rose’s piece in Vanity Fair back in 2005. In fact I guess in that article, they talked about how he and his team of lawyers and whoever, they went and checked and they could see how Dennis Hastert had raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, far higher than the average of any other congress people, in the very smallest payments, $199 and less, that don’t have to have a name attached to them.
Edmonds: Exactly.
Horton: Which, you know, wasn’t solid proof necessarily, but was a pretty strong clue that what you had been saying about how he had been paid off was right. That clearly, you know, when we’re talking about a briefcase full of cash, that’s clearly criminal behavior there I think.
Edmonds: That solid proof came later. In 2007 he resigned and immediately he signed up as a lobbyist for the government of Turkey. He is a registered foreign agent. So he is registered under FARA. This is after he got out of Congress. This was right after he got out of Congress. And now he’s receiving the known number of $35,000 a month, per month, from directly of the government of Turkey. This is the rest of the thank you that has to go from the government of Turkey to Dennis Hastert. And he was bold enough to do it without even a blink. He basically got out of Congress and registered himself as an agent of the government of Turkey.
Horton: We’ve left poor John M. Cole out of the conversation for a little while here. John, let me give you a chance to address anything you think should have been addressed in this interview that I didn’t get to, as far as helping the people in the audience kind of understand how serious this is, what we’re up against. And I guess I’d like to give you a chance to call for prosecution as you were quoted as doing on Peter Collins’s show a few weeks ago.
Cole: Well I guess what I have to say is that, I think Sibel is right in that I think a majority of Americans want to know the truth, what’s going on. I think a lot of Americans are just fed up with all the scandal in the government. There needs to be accountability, there needs to be better oversight. And that’s just not happening. And that’s the whole point I have in my book is that here are some issues that come up, this is what’s happened and no one is being held accountable for their actions. I think that’s a big thing here. I think there needs to be accountability. The media doesn’t want to discuss it or print it in their papers because if it goes into the paper, what I noticed, and John Drake was a [unintelligible] investigator once told me, he goes, “You know it will go in the paper one day, it will be a big uproar that day and then the next day everybody forgets about it.” And that seems to be the case. It’s gotten to the point in our country though, it’s become so divided now that I think everybody is fed up and they want to know the truth, what’s going on. I think there needs to be some sort of outlet for the people to find out exactly what is going on. What is the truth and hold these people accountable. If somebody commits a crime in this country they should be arrested and they should be prosecuted. There’re a lot of people getting away with a lot of things in this country. It’s just not right.
Horton: Which reminds me of what you said to Peter Collins, as quoted at the BradBlog. People “getting away with murder” you said. And in fact Brad was over here for an interview in the studio and we went back and we listened to the audio of that part of the interview just to make sure that you really earned those italics where he put them in the quote and so forth. And yeah, it sure did sound to my ear like you were not talking about, “Boy, they get away with blue, bloody murder.” It sounded like you were talking about was “Yeah, they get away with murdering people.”
Cole: I didn’t mean it in that respect. What I mean by that is it seems like you have officials who are high up in our government that do things that are so farfetched, I mean so illegal and then no one touches them. No one wants to pursue it for whatever reason.
Horton: So what you did mean is they get away with blue, bloody murder, but not in the literal sense.
Cole: Exactly. I hope not literal.
Horton: Not as far as you know.
Cole: As far as I know, no.
Horton: So the book, John M. Cole, While America Sleeps, an FBI Whistleblower’s Story. That’s on the shelves available now, right?
Cole: I believe so, yes.
Edmonds: It’s a great book. It’s sincere and this is what Americans will get. It is sincerely written, none of those entertaining touched up by hundreds of people kind of a book. They will get to hear John Cole.
Cole: Well what I’m hoping is it makes a change. I think people need to know what’s going on and they need to wake up. Our country, we need to wake up and take care of these issues before another 9/11 occurs or before something else happens in our country. If we don’t, something will definitely happen again, because there’s so many things that need to be changed. And there’s people that need to be held accountable. If that doesn’t happen then we’re in a world of trouble.
Horton: Well my understanding is that the publisher sent one on its way to me. So I hope to read it and have you back on the show to discuss the book in detail soon John.
Cole: I appreciate that.
Horton: I think there’s a point that can be made here, which is a news story in itself really, which is that you’re starting a new news site with your own in-house reporters, including two that I hold in very high esteem, Peter Lance and Joe Lauria, to start. Tell us all about that Sibel.
Edmonds: Right. I have contract arrangements with several seasoned veterans, with proven track record investigative journalists. These people as you know, Joe Lauria, Peter Lance, or in this case also Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald. These people have been doing the real investigative work stories for many, many years. Because I’ve found out that there are these reporters who are disenfranchised because they are disgusted with the mainstream media, some of them are even being booted out with the cutbacks. But they don’t like the pseudo alternative media. You can go and list some of the popular ones, they get nauseated even by their names, and I understand. So they don’t feel like they have a home. They want to do work, but they don’t want to be driven with that partisanship, you know. I’m suddenly an editor or reporter. I have an e-mail account and I have a cell phone. I can call and say, give me a comment. I’m a reporter. I report. So I have been talking to these individuals. I have been talking with some really good authors and their names will come out after we have the contract from the editorial people who want to have this option and say, “Okay, let’s try together, and Sibel, we are willing to produce this.” Now let’s find out if the American people, especially those who have been as disgusted as I have been with the current state of this media, what we have available, will support it. Because you don’t need a really huge gigantic budget. You’re not going to try everything