The Intercept Briefing

Monday marked the five year anniversary of the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s executive summary on the CIA’s torture program. The former top Senate Intelligence Committee investigator, Daniel Jones and his team combed through 6.3 million pages of CIA records. Jones discusses the years-long battle with the Bush and Obama administrations to make public the findings of this still-classified 7,000 page report. In this bonus episode, Jones expands on the torture report findings.  Jones is the subject of the new feature film, The Report, starring Adam Driver and Annette Bening, and the host of its companion podcast, The Report Podcast, with Kelly McEvers, where they unpack the story of the CIA’s torture program, the Senate’s investigation, and ensuing cover-up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As Washington D.C. remains focused on the Trump impeachment, Daniel Jones, the former top Senate Intelligence Committee investigator into the CIA torture program discusses the years-long battle with the Bush and Obama administrations to make public the findings of his still-classified 7,000 page report. Jones, the subject of the new feature film, The Report, starring Adam Driver and Annette Bening, discusses his findings. He tells the story of how the CIA, under John Brennan, spied on the Senate investigators and accessed their classified computers.As a rebellion in Iraq forces the resignation of the country’s prime minister, Iraqi activist Raed Jarrar describes the roots of the protests, the impact of foreign intervention by numerous countries, and the history of the U.S. encouraging sectarianism in Iraq.Plus, "Bigger Than Baghdad" — we hear new music from Iraqi-Canadian hip-hop artist Narcy about the protests in Iraq. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Jeffrey Sterling was indicted in 2010 on charges under the Espionage Act for allegedly leaking sensitive national security information to then-New York Times reporter James Risen. Sterling discusses his time as a CIA case officer and how his internal complaint about Operation Merlin, a half-baked CIA scheme that had tried to disrupt Iran’s nuclear weapons development, led to his firing. Sterling explains the discrimination suit he filed against the CIA and how there is no evidence that he was the source for Risen, who is now The Intercept's senior national security correspondent. Sterling also shares what it was like to be charged under the Espionage Act and comments on the appalling hostility toward whistleblowers in the U.S. Sterling’s new book is “Unwanted Spy: The Persecution of an American Whistleblower.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Iranian-American author and analyst Hooman Majd discusses a century of history marked by intervention and threats from major world powers. Beginning with Britain, Russia, and Germany battling for control of Iran’s oil, Majd and Jeremy Scahill discuss the CIA coup against Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953, the Islamic revolution, and the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and how Washington has repeatedly tried to bring down the government of the Islamic Republic. The Intercept’s investigative series The Iran Cables offers historical insight into Iran’s operations in neighboring Iraq, which are informed by the bloody history of the Iran-Iraq War, the U.S. invasion, subsequent occupation, and the shattering of Iraqi society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Early Monday morning, a few minutes past midnight, The Intercept published a major series of investigative stories based on a cache of more than 700 pages of secret Iranian intelligence files detailing years of “painstaking work by Iranian spies to co-opt the country’s leaders, pay Iraqi agents working for the Americans to switch sides, and infiltrate every aspect of Iraq’s political, economic, and religious life.” On this special episode of Intercepted: The Intercept’s Murtaza Hussein and New York Times reporter Farnaz Fassihi discuss the revelations.The leak of these files is historic. The Iran Cables paint a picture of the actions of a rational nation state actor’s intervention in the affairs of a neighbor whose government once launched a devastating war against it with the backing of the world’s preeminent superpower, the U.S. For more than six decades, successive U.S. governments have waged military and economic war on Iran and Iraq. In the post-9/11 world, the U.S. overthrew the governments of two of Iran’s most threatening neighbors, Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, while simultaneously coming dangerously close to an all out regime change war against Iran. The 2003 invasion shattered Iraq and the documents in the Iran Cables tell the story of the secret activities of its neighbor Iran. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As right-wing forces attack indigenous Bolivians and allies of Morales, the Trump administration says the toppling of the democratically-elected government “preserves democracy.” Anthropologist and Bolivia scholar Bret Gustafson offers a nuanced analysis of how the coup unfolded, who benefits from the crisis, and what is at stake for the overwhelmingly indigenous population.Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is now free after spending a year and a half behind bars. He says he wants to run for president and fight the far right regime of Jair Bolsonaro. The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald talks about his recent conversation with Lula, the threats against Intercept journalists in Brasil, and the latest on the corruption investigation into Justice Minister Sergio Moro. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this special episode of Intercepted, Jordan Smith and Liliana Segura discuss the case of Rodney Reed.The state of Texas has set an execution date of November 20 for Reed. He has been on death row since 1998, following his conviction in the murder of a young woman named Stacy Stites in April of 1996. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence in this case that Reed is innocent, and a very compelling case to be made that Stites’s fiancee at the time of her murder should be the focus of this case. Her fiancee was a police officer at the time of her killing. He is also now a convicted felon himself with a shocking track record of violent assault and rape. Rodney Reed’s life is now hanging in the balance, and an unlikely coalition of high profile people are trying to halt this execution, including Texas Republican politicians and elected officials. Perhaps most prominent among them is Sen. Ted Cruz. Jordan Smith and Liliana Segura are both journalists at The Intercept and the cohosts of Murderville. Check out all of their work on this case at The Intercept.If you like what we do, support our show by going to TheIntercept.com/join. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Organizer Astra Taylor, author of “Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone,” analyzes “minoritarian” rule in the U.S., how capitalism undermines democracy, and lays out concrete ideas for fighting back. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of “Race for Profit,” talks about the history of how the U.S. government and predatory lenders conspired against Black home ownership in the United States. She also explains why privatizing affordable housing initiatives is a recipe for continued disaster. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amidst the grandstanding and partisan bickering, no one wants to talk about the decades of U.S. policy that helped give rise to ISIS and al Qaeda. Jeremy Scahill discusses how U.S. policy opened a Pandora’s box in Iraq and Syria.Islamic studies scholar Amanda Rogers discusses the actual founder of ISIS, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and how ISIS adopted tactics from the U.S. “war on terror.”War reporter Mike Giglio talks about his time on the ground covering ISIS. He documents this experience in his new book,  “Shatter the Nations: ISIS and the War for the Caliphate.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.