John Cohen: Combating Domestic Terrorism

Ken Harbaugh:

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John Cohen:

The country is so polarized. We have so many people who are angry. There's a growing number of people who believe that violence is an acceptable way to express one's anger at society or disagreement with others, including the government on policy issues, on political issues.

And those three factors come together from my perspective to form a perfect storm in a sense.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm Ken Harbaugh, and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.

My guest today is John Cohen, an expert on terrorism, counterintelligence, and law enforcement. He served as the acting Chief of Intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, and now, heads the Center for Internet Security.

John, welcome to the show.

John Cohen:

It's great to be with you. Thanks for inviting me.

Ken Harbaugh:

Of course. You said recently that (and I'm quoting here), “This is the most complex, volatile, and dangerous threat environment I've experienced in the almost four decades that I've been involved in this profession.”

That does not sound good. Let's start with your 30,000 foot assessment of that threat environment.

John Cohen:

Yeah. I mean, in making that observation and that assessment, I'm basing it on several factors. One, we are experiencing a threat environment that is evolving at internet speed.

And in large part, that's because foreign and domestic threat actors, whether it's foreign intelligence services, foreign terrorist groups, domestic violent extremists, even criminal organizations, have fully embraced the power of the internet. And they use internet-based communication tools to achieve their tactical objectives.

And sadly, the analytic community and the law enforcement community hasn't fully adapted. So, we are in a sense, using investigative and operational techniques that were designed to confront a threat that doesn't really exist today in the same way.

Secondly, this threat environment is being fed by an online ecosystem that is absolutely saturated with content that's placed there specifically by foreign and domestic threat actors for the purposes of undermining credibility in our government institutions, destabilizing our society, inspiring violence, weakening our relationship with our key allies.

So, in each and every day, people who are vulnerable to being influenced are consuming this video, audio, and other types of content.

And then finally, the country is so polarized. We have so many people who are angry. There's a growing number of people who believe that violence is an acceptable way to express one's anger at society or disagreement with others, including the government on policy issues, on political issues.

And those three factors come together from my perspective to form a perfect storm in a sense.

Ken Harbaugh:

I want to talk about each of them in turn, but the failure of the law enforcement community, the intelligence community, to adapt to this threat that is moving, as you said, at internet speed, you say it's a matter of failure to update techniques.

But is it also, the legal regime within which they're working? Are there regulatory inhibitions or tools that they need that they don't have?

John Cohen:

It's a combination of all of that. This is not easy. Law enforcement is not there to police thought or to influence one's personal or political beliefs. It is there to ensure that the threat of violent crime and violent activity is mitigated.

And so, law enforcement has to be able to distinguish between online content that's constitutionally protected, that's free speech, that's an expression of one's views, and that activity that is threat related.

Secondly, I worked narcotics for a big part of my career as a law enforcement officer. And when I was involved in investigating transnational narcotics trafficking organizations, a lot of the communication was using pagers and payphones. It was involved meeting people in parking lots and exchanging money for drugs.

But today, those same trafficking organizations are engaging in transactions on the dark web. They are using cryptocurrencies as the currency of choice.

And drugs are being shipped using one-time couriers who are recruited using TikTok or other online social media platforms, or they're sent through private shipping.

So, we have to train narcotics investigators in this example to think differently, to understand the digital world.

And finally, because of the use of the internet by these threat actors, the threat of targeted violence, terrorism, extremism, motivated violence, is much more of an individualized threat. We're still looking at the threat of terrorism based on organizations.

And today, much of the terrorism related violence we're seeing are individuals who are inspired and instructed by content that they consume online.

So, again, it's understanding the threat, it's getting the tools in the hands of those who are investigating or gathering intelligence about the threat so they can see threat related activity. It's making sure they have the legal authorities clearly understood so that they're doing it in a way that doesn't compromise constitutional protections.

Ken Harbaugh:

Let's talk about that individualized terrorist threat, because there's this idea out there about the lone wolf.

And I worry that that can be misleading to a lot of people because lone wolves, though their actions might be isolated, aren't really alone in their ideology, in the moral support they receive from these extremist movements.

Can you talk about that phenomenon and stochastic terrorism?

John Cohen:

Yeah, absolutely. So, if you think about what we were concerned about from an intelligence military and law enforcement perspective after September 11th, 2001, we were really concerned about foreign terrorist organizations who would recruit people either abroad or in this country.

Who would relocate them to training facilities so they can be indoctrinated, trained, and eventually deployed where they would conduct a plan, oftentimes with other individuals associated with that terror organization, but under the command and control of the terror organization.

Today, the threat we're dealing with is much different. Today, if you look at mass casualty attacks in this country, they are primarily conducted by individuals, lone offenders or small groups of people who self-connect with an ideological belief system that they cultivate through the consumption of online content.

Very often, this belief system includes a blend of ideological beliefs. Little white supremacy blended with extremist Islamic beliefs with a little bit of incel or gender identity issues.

These attacks are generally carried out by individuals, while their motives may differ, who embrace or exhibit certain behavioral characteristics.

And they're receiving their instructions, sometimes instructions that are placed there by terrorist organizations on how to conduct attacks through this content that they're consuming as well.

So, while they may be acting on behalf of an ideological belief system promoted by a terror group, there's no command and control, there's no communication, there's no interaction between those individuals and the individuals associated with that group.

We've built an entire counter-terrorism capability that has been truly effective in protecting this country, but it's based on intercepting communications, tracking movements, watching for interactions between operatives and others in a specific terror organization.

So, if an individual can become inspired and prepare for an attack by never leaving their basement, by ordering supplies online, or using items that are easily available to purchase without arousing its attention, then that's a very different law enforcement problem to tackle.

Ken Harbaugh:

And even when we do find the perpetrators after the boom, as Stan McChrystal says, we don't have domestic terrorism laws that can roll up entire organizations. We talked to Ali Soufan about this.

Can you address that gap in our law enforcement?

John Cohen:

Yeah. So, while under federal law, there are definitions for domestic terrorism, there is no prosecutable criminal offense known as domestic terrorism.

So, when you find an individual who may be collaborating with other like-minded individuals, they're motivated by extreme political or ideological beliefs, they organize themselves to conduct a violent attack as in furtherance of those beliefs.

If their activities cannot be connected to a foreign terrorist group that's designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization, they can't be prosecuted for terrorism or associated offenses.

So, that means investigators need to build a conspiracy case, prosecute them for attempted murder or some other federal crime.

So, there's been a lot of discussion from a public policy perspective on whether we need a change in federal law, so that if someone say, is motivated by anti-government beliefs and they engage in a conspiracy to conduct an attack against a government facility, that they could be prosecuted under lawful terrorism, because currently today they cannot.

Ken Harbaugh:

That's a double-edged sword though, right? Because I have heard plenty of skeptics who I trust and who are arguing in good faith that if you give that power to the government to declare domestic terrorist entities, that can be abused.

I mean, we had the threat from the former president of declaring a protest organization as a terrorist entity. And that just is a Pandora's box.

John Cohen:

Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, those who advocate for domestic terrorism statutes will make the argument that you need that designation, that statute, so that law enforcement can use tools that they use in foreign terrorism cases.

Those who have concerns about that argue that there is a history of those tools being abused by law enforcement or the intelligence community. And one person's domestic terror cause may be another person's political viewpoints.

And the concern is that people would be potentially subject to investigations simply because they disagreed with the policies or the current activity, the activities of a government administration that's in place.

Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting discussion intellectually, but as an operational person, as a person who has been involved in investigations and counter terror operations and counterintelligence operations, the tools are there to investigate, and when appropriate, prosecute individuals who engage in illegal activity and furtherance of an ideological belief.

I think we need to be really careful about criminalizing first amendment protected activities or criminalizing behavior that may be constitutionally protected just because subset of our society believes it to be extreme or inconsistent with widely held views.

But again, the line has to be very clear. We can be in a situation where we're asking law enforcement to police thought. The activities of law enforcement need to be exclusively focused on that nexus between ideology and illegal and violent activity.

Ken Harbaugh:

Totally agree. But that is separate from monitoring foreign actors trying to influence our political processes, trying to radicalize our citizens.

What's the role of law enforcement in monitoring that kind of traffic coming into our political discourse when it's clearly malevolent, it's clearly disinformation?

How should we be reacting to state actors or non-state actors? But I'm thinking about Russia, for example, trying to foment, discord, and undermine as a case in point, our confidence in our election system.

John Cohen:

Yeah, great, great, great question. So, when one works in law enforcement or in national security, your activities are guided by an understanding of the threat actors you're concerned about, whether it's a drug trafficking organization or a foreign intelligence services, by understanding what their objectives are, how they operate, how they seek to achieve those tactical objectives in furtherance of their strategic goals.

And then once you've plotted out how they work, then you find ways to disrupt their activities, whether it's an activity that may be harmful to US national security or it's activity that amounts to a illegal act or a criminal act.

And so, to your point, what we have learned is these foreign and domestic threat actors, like take your example with regard to Russian intelligence, they have figured out that they can study those points of contention in our political discourse.

They can develop and promote content online that exploits those fractures. They can develop content that's intended to mobilize physical actions by people. Some of it may be constitutionally protected, but some of it may be violent.

They can undermine confidence in our key democratic institutions, whether it's the government or it's our election process. And they can achieve their intelligence or their operational objectives in doing that.

So, the first step in countering those activities are to understand and document that's what they're doing. Once you do that, then you can figure out how to take that analysis. Well, first of all, you can figure out where you should be looking.

So, we don't need to use big data computer systems to look at everybody's online postings. What we should be doing from an information collection and analytic perspective is understand what are the forums that are being used by foreign intelligence services that are hostile to the United States by foreign terrorist organizations, by criminal organizations.

Document how they are using those to carry out their illegal activities, and then incorporate the information we see on those forms to better understand what are the potential targets and tactics they may be using to achieve their tactical objectives.

So, for example, this doesn't have to do with Russia, but if a anti-government group (and this is a real case) posts a one-minute video online that starts with a slide that says violence is all they understand.

It then shows vignette videos of police officers being executed, being shot, stabbed, lit on fire. The musical score behind the those video vignettes is a song called Kill the Police. And then they conclude the video with a side that says violence is all they understand.

And then associated with that one-minute video is a 200 page instruction manual on how to engage in pre-operational surveillance, how to conduct ambush encounters during calls for service or self-initiated activity by law enforcement, how to build explosive devices, how to use firearms.

Looking at that information may not give you the answer to each specific act of violence, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what people who are planning these types of acts of violence, the guidance that they are receiving.

And that gives you insights on protective measures that need to be put in place during investigative activities that could lead to preventing an act of violence.

Ken Harbaugh:

It used to be that when these threats came into our country or were elevated to the point as they are now, where cops are experiencing ambush attacks, that there was a broad consensus, at least politically, that we needed to meet them in a united way.

I'm thinking about the reaction to the Nazi of the fascist threat in the ‘30s and ‘40s. I'm thinking about the reaction to the communist threats in the Cold War.

But we're in an environment now, where the external threats are in some cases championed and amplified by one party in particular, or the warnings about them are dismissed and diminished.

I mean, January 6th is, I think, an instructive example of a clear attack on law enforcement that has now, been celebrated by elements of a major political party.

I think that gets to the third point in your assessment of the threat environment, which is the dramatic polarization we're now experiencing. And I don't know how to address that.

John Cohen:

I have to tell you, I mean, you have a military background. My background's primarily in law enforcement. What bothers me the most about the current threat environment are the following.

Why do we see so many threat actors, again, whether they be criminal organizations, or terrorist groups, or foreign intelligence services using information operations? Because they work.

If you study those points of contention in a society, you figure out what are those fractures in the society? What are those issues that people are likely to be most passionate in responding to?

And you develop content that helps people who are scared about their current situation, they're angry about their current situation in life, they don't understand why certain things are happening, whether it be a pandemic or economic situations.

You can very often get those people and even a subset of those people to engage in violent or disruptive activity.

But if you're running for office or you're in the media and you're trying to attract ratings, that same playbook works to allow you to achieve those political related objectives as well.

Because people can be influenced by the content and the narratives that you're promoting online or through the forms that we use today more commonly to spread information.

So, I'm not suggesting that mainstream political figures or some people in the media are seeking to inspire violence.

But what I'm saying is that when you are a public figure and you mimic the sociopolitical narratives of terrorist groups or foreign intelligence services who are seeking to weaken the United States, disrupt our relationship with our NATO allies to sow discord and even inspire violence, you are contributing to the threat environment.

And that's what concerns me is that I can sit here and counteract the efforts of a terrorist organization or a foreign intelligence service through a variety of intelligence driven law enforcement and even military activities.

But when their narratives are being spread as part of our political discourse, that's a very complicated issue for a law enforcement person to address.

So, what do you do? As a society, we need to come to the agreement that, you know what, I may disagree with my neighbor, or my family members, or even people that are running for office, and I will be passionate about the communication of my disagreement with those folks and my own individual political beliefs.

But I don't have to view those who disagree with me as the enemy. I don't have to believe that if a person or a group disagrees with me or they hold religious beliefs or beliefs regarding gender identity, or reproductive rights, or migrate immigration that differ than mine, that they're not only the enemy, but they should be targeted for violence.

That's where the rhetoric, that's where the polarization has gotten to the point where it's contributing to the threat environment.

Ken Harbaugh:

I think your observation about political leaders mimicking the sociopolitical narratives that foment this division and violence is just so spot on.

Because there is a distinction between the people who engage in these acts of violence and are drawn to these extremist groups because of, as you've written, they are disconnected from society and looking for meaning in their lives.

And the ones provoking them, the Josh Hawleys, who with raised fist provoked protestors to turn into a mob of insurrectionists who grew up in a banking family, went to private schools his whole life was at Yale Law School with me, and is just mimicking that angst and grievance.

And I have to believe so many of his ilk don't actually feel that. They're being cynical, they're being manipulative.

I think of the Ted Cruzs, Harvard Law School, the JD Vances, Yale Law School. Even Trump himself, who from a presidential podium name checked the Proud Boys designated as a terrorist organization by Canada.

These political leaders don't actually share any of these affiliations. They're manipulating those who do to charge the barricades.

John Cohen:

So, a few observations, and bear with me. I have to tell you, we are living in a time where each individual in this country potentially has access to more information than at any time in our history.

And you can do it from your phone, you can do it from your desktop, you can do it from your laptop. The amount of information that one can find is just staggering. Yet I would argue many of us are less informed today than they were two decades ago.

We also see people that are heavily influenced by conspiracy theories that just are promoted for the purposes of fostering and fanning the flames of anger.

So, again, you have a background in government or in the military. I've been involved in about 40 years. I can tell you that our government institutions are not capable of having a deep state.

I can also, say that there are no space lasers that start forest fires. I can also, say that there is not a group of blood drinking pedophile globalists that are secretly controlling every move.

Ken Harbaugh:

That's because we're both part of the deep state, John.

John Cohen:

I can also, say that I'm not being tracked by chips that were inputted in my arm when I received my flu or COVID vaccine.

But there's a lot of people who believe that. And these aren't just people who are uneducated and don't have access to information. It includes people who are highly educated.

I would be willing to wager with you that Josh Hawley doesn't believe that either.

The other thing I would say is January 6th to me, is really fascinating example, an illustration of exactly what we're dealing with in the country. Because if you look at what happened that day, the people who went to the Capitol on January 6th really sort of fall into three categories of people.

You had individuals who traveled to Washington that day and attended the rally prior to the certification. They were upset about their candidate losing. And they came to Washington to communicate that disappointment.

And they ended up at the Capitol. And they didn't engage in violent or destructive activity. They were involved in constitutionally protected activity.

Then you had a second group of individuals who traveled to Washington that day. They were angry about their candidate losing, they believed conspiracy theories that the election was stolen. And they came to Washington that day to engage in destructive and maybe even violent activity.

And then the third groupings of people were individuals with anti-government beliefs who came to the Capitol that day in an organized way. They had a plan. They used military tactics and techniques in order to conduct an operation to prevent the certification of the vote.

What unified all three categories of people, those involving constitution protected activity, all the way through those organized anti-government militia groups that came to the Capitol with a plan and with preparation and with equipment, is that they were all driven here.

Their activities were fueled by the conspiracy theory that the election had been stole. That's what unified them all.

So, that's the challenge facing law enforcement and national security and homeland security officials today, is you have to be able to distinguish between those who may be influenced by a conspiracy theory but they're still engaging in constitution protected activity.

Those individuals, and more importantly, those groups, those trained, those former military, former law enforcement folks who were vulnerable to being influenced by these conspiracy theories. They were targeted with content by those who are trying to destabilize and undermine the United States. And like others in our society, they fell for it.

Ken Harbaugh:

Here's the real kicker for me as someone with a law degree and someone who's almost a zealot about First Amendment protections, conspiracy theories are protected. That is protected speech as well until they turn into incitements to violence.

But it is really challenging when those conspiracy theories are taken up by political leaders and they're amplified, and they're validated.

And you have the former president himself as the chief proponent and chief cheerleader of a lie that leads to an insurrection. Accountability in that case is really, really tough.

John Cohen:

It's really tough. And what's interesting, I was a history major in school and I'm one of those crazy people that read the Constitution every year, read the Declaration of Independence every year. And I read The Federalist Papers, every Federalist Paper, every single year.

And if you go back and read Federalist Paper 10 and some of the later ones, the founders while they could not have anticipated the technological advancements we have in society today, they understood human behavior and they understood what was the greatest danger to this republic.

And I urge people to go back and reread it because you'll see things in the Federalist Papers that you would think that the founders were here today.

Because they so accurately describe how the passions and emotions of the electorate could be manipulated by foreign and domestic individuals and groups who did not have the best interests of this country at heart.

And they tried to build protections into the system that would prevent the destruction of the republic by these malicious forces.

So, it is, as I said earlier, I think motives may differ for why people promote some of these sociopolitical narratives. I'm not willing to go out on the line saying that key public figures, mainstream public figures all are seeking to overthrow the government of the United States.

But as an intelligence and law enforcement professional, what I can say is the playbook that's used by Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, anti-government groups here, is to introduce content that's going to fan the flames of discord in this country, fan the flames of anger.

Have it spread across the online ecosystem, and eventually have it amplified by mainstream figures so that it becomes so commonplace and so there's a higher likelihood that somebody who's willing to engage in violence, whether it's targeting a member of a faith community or a government official or a law enforcement official, will see the content, act on it, and engage in violence.

That's the plan. That's their playbook.

And we have government leaders, quite frankly, who understand that playbook, but they still engage in those types of activities to amplify that content.

Ken Harbaugh:

My cousin is a retired cop. I know you spent years as a cop. I'm saying this as someone who has law enforcement in the family. Why do so many police officers look at January 6th and what happened to their brothers and sisters on the line and still defend Trump, still vote for Trump?

Is it part of that disinformation campaign or is it a deeper cultural phenomenon?

John Cohen:

Yeah. As I said earlier, I've been involved in law enforcement, homeland security, national security for a little over 40 years. I'm very proud of my profession.

I know that on a day-to-day basis there are frontline law enforcement officers who put their life on the line, who work to safeguard the community, who do things that many in our society would not be able to do.

And they at times suffer, their family suffer, and sometimes they even pay the ultimate sacrifice.

But just like any other element of our society, my brothers and sisters in law enforcement and the folks who are in the military are susceptible to being influenced by the same psychological, behavioral, and information operation issues that impact how other people in our society behave.

What's different though, for those in law enforcement and the military is that they are not only the targets of those who are engaging in these information operations, meaning they are the Russians specifically targeting active duty military personnel and veterans seeking to exploit those issues of concern to those communities.

Whether it's issues relating to housing, or healthcare, or feelings of not being treated fairly by society.

There is a constant barrage of content being directed at veterans, at active duty military personnel, and at law enforcement seeking to exploit their concerns, exploit their fears, exploit their frustrations so that they lose confidence in the system.

But those same communities are also, being actively targeted by those same threat actors as the recipient of the violence they're seeking to stow, and particularly law enforcement.

I can tell you one of the things that is common across these information operations by terrorist groups, domestic violent extremists, Russia, Iran, China is the content they promote calling for attacks against law enforcement.

And after the jury verdict and relatively recently case of excessive force by police, we actually saw the exact same words, the exact same video content showing up on Al-Qaeda and ISIS related forms, Russian forms, and anti-government forms here in the US all using the same words, all attacking the jury that ultimately convicted that police officer.

So, I'm not suggesting that they're coordinating, but they're using the same playbook. And that playbook includes targeting with information operations, the military and law enforcement.

But also, having military and law enforcement personnel targeted by those who are being influenced by these information operations. And sometimes that targeting is deadly.

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah. You've grouped the military and law enforcement as targets for this kind of misinformation. I would submit that there is a really key distinction, especially when it comes to law enforcement and the worldview that so many people in that profession gravitate to.

And this is worn out in my conversations with my cousin, law enforcement officers unlike people in the military, so many days on the job, they see the worst in humanity. And it has or can have a corrosive effect because of what society asks them to do. It's a tremendous burden.

And that daily experience of dealing often with the worst in humanity leads many people in the profession to see humanity itself that way.

John Cohen:

No, absolutely. I mean, I worked patrol in an area of Los Angeles that was low income of community of color and I saw this time and time again.

When you spend 10 hours a day seeing violence, seeing people being targeted with illegal activity, you're constantly being exposed to what's really the worst parts of our society.

And equally, you're not spending time with others in that community who are good people who are being victims themselves. You tend to start drawing conclusions.

You begin forming these inaccurate views that everyone in the … because everyone that is being seen by the law enforcement officer is engaged in heinous activity, then everyone is in that community is involved in heinous activity.

I got to tell you, just to tell you a story because I love telling war stories. I was on patrol, I came across a car that had just run into a telephone pole. The car was stolen, the driver of the vehicle jumped out of his car and started running. So, I began chasing him.

I went back and forth and back and forth in these backyards and I finally caught the guy. I handcuffed him, I took him out to the front. People started coming out. I said, “Oh-oh, people are going to be all upset.”

This was at a time in Los Angeles County where the relationships between law enforcement and the community was beginning to fray.

And all of a sudden people started clapping and people were bringing me glasses of water because it was a hot day in LA. And people were explaining just how difficult it was to live in that neighborhood.

One lady, and this has almost become a cliche now, was telling me how her kids can't play in their front yard. And how she went to bed every night scared that a bullet would come through the walls of their house and hurt her children.

And it was really powerful moment for me because what it really did is reawaken those neuro pathways in my brain that told me there are bad people in this community. There are people who are engaged in violent and criminal activity. There are people who are involved in violent street gangs, but that's not everyone in the community.

And what I encourage law enforcement organizations to do is to ensure that there are ways in which that understanding can be reinforced with law enforcement officers on a day-to-day basis.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm going to share a clip with you. I'll do a screen share in just a second about the latest proposed round of budget cuts by the Republican House caucus, which includes 3% from DOJ, 7% from the ATF, 6% from the FBI. I mean, if there was ever a actual defund the police campaign, it's this.

And I would love your reaction to it, given how much ink was spilled about the supposed defund the police campaign on the left. Here's the clip.

Speaker 3:

We have advanced and we also, advanced, as you've seen the summary cuts to some of the agencies that we believe are really overreaching and have been turned in some ways against the American people. We are going to cut 3% from DOJ, 7% from the ATF, 6% from the FBI, and 10% from the EPA.

Ken Harbaugh:

John, how do you react to that?

John Cohen:

I mean, look, I think it's important for people to understand what these organizations actually really do. And I've been fortunate in my career, I've worked with ATF, I've worked with the FBI, I worked drug cases.

When you decrease the funding for those two agencies, you are decreasing the number of investigations into violent gangs. You will be decreasing the investigations into violent drug trafficking organizations.

You will be decreasing the ability of the FBI to arrest sexual predators. Those who are involved in white collar crime, those who are involved in corrupt political activities.

You will reduce the ability of the federal government to ensure that criminals do not get access to firearms so that they can go out and engage in violent criminal activity.

By reducing funds to DOJ, broadly, you're going to reduce potentially the number of prosecutors who are going to be available to prosecute criminals.

So, what's going to end up happening is that people aren't going to be charged. And if people are going to be charged, it'll be difficult to address the demand for those who are going to court in furtherance of those prosecutions. So, that means people will be released.

So, all that that's going to accomplish is that there's going to be more drugs, more violence, more gang members who aren't going to be in jail but will be committing crimes in our communities.

Ken Harbaugh:

Do you think it is possible in 2024, that we'll see a shift within your profession, an awakening, if you will, an awareness that the party that once claimed to be the law and order party, tough on crime is actually pulling the rug out from underneath law enforcement. They're celebrating insurrectionists and people who beat cops with flagpoles.

I come at this as a veteran who saw in 2020, a striking shift within the military. You had a wartime president, Donald Trump, who should have gotten an overwhelming majority of the military vote if you look at historical patterns as a Republican wartime president but didn't. I mean, barely broke even.

And that was an incredible shift. I think that will continue among military voters. Do you think anything like that is in the cards for those in law enforcement?

John Cohen:

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I have to say as a nonpolitical person, I mean, I've worked for Democrats, I've worked for Republicans, I've stayed focused not on political ideology, but on doing my job in law enforcement, or counter terrorism, or homeland security.

I think what bothers me is there's a accuracy void. If you look at what was discussed in the State of the Union and the reaction in State of the Union, I have to live in the world of facts. So, let's talk about some facts.

Violent crime began rising in 2019. It rose 2019 as compared to 2018, it rose again in 2020. And that rise continued until last year for many communities.

Now, we still have violent crime levels that need to be addressed, but for most major cities in 2023, we saw the first decrease in violent crime that we've seen in a number of years.

And some of that is related to societal dynamics, and economic dynamics, and the end of COVID, but also, some of it is due to policies.

Immigration. We started seeing significant increases in southwest border presentations and encounters in 2019.

The only reason why those increases did not continue because people were flooding into Central and South America from 2019, to 2020, to 2021, to 2022, was because we essentially severely restricted entry into the US during the COVID.

So, while we weren't allowing people to come in and seek asylum through legal methods during the COVID years, people were still fleeing disease and violence and corruption from all over the world heading to Central and South America in preparation to trying to come to the US to legally seek asylum.

But also, happened during that time as we diverted massive amounts of money away from the law enforcement and other resources needed to process those people and applied it to building the border wall.

Which as a narcotics investigator and a person who has dealt with border issues for most of my career, I can tell you that a wall by itself will not stop the flow of drugs into the United States or address migration issues.

But it did take money away from operational resources that could have an impact. So, when the numbers hit after COVID, we didn't have the resources and the personnel to do all the things you need to do to handle those numbers.

So, what concerns me is those are two factual situations. But you tell me how those issues are being framed politically because it's not based on an accurate representation of what the reality of the situation is. And that's what concerns me.

Because as I mentioned before, law enforcement folks and I would be hazard to guess, military folks, they get their news, they get their information the same way other parts of our society do.

And absent accurate information, people form beliefs that may or may not be accurate based on the situation that we are confronting.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, let's just look at one element of the immigration propaganda campaign as a case in point, this charge, this accusation that terrorists are flooding across the southern border.

You've addressed this, it should be factually pretty easy to address, but because it's such a useful informational weapon on the right, it keeps getting regurgitated.

I think this was in the New York Times, you said, “In the vast majority of cases, it's ultimately determined that there is no connection with terrorism and that individual.”

Can you explain what's going on with the panic over the terror watch lists and the immigrants who show up on it at the southern border?

John Cohen:

Yeah, I mean if you and I were having this conversation in 2002, I would be saying, “Hey, we need to be concerned about the southern border. Terrorists may seek to infiltrate the US through that method.

And what we did and what we learned over the years since then is we put in a lot of protections. We have pretty good visibility in who's traveling to the region, Central and South America.

We have a pretty good idea of if there are terrorist facilitators there, where they are, and who they're dealing with. We've expanded our ability to screen and vet people.

And that means people that are presenting at a port of entry or encountered in between the ports, we have the ability to determine not just through the terrorist watch list, but through much more accurate and in-depth information about who these people are, who they have relationships with, whether they're a terrorist or a criminal.

What we also learned, this was a little bit of a surprise to me, is that the criminal organizations that are involved in human smuggling and drug trafficking, they didn't want to go anywhere near terrorist.

Because drug traffickers in particular knew that if they were responsible for smuggling someone into the US who committed a terror attack, that they would be subject to a whole range of operational activities that went far beyond what they have to deal with right now, being drug traffickers.

I mean, you only have to look at what happened when Kiki Camarena the DEA agent was killed by a Mexican drug gang. And the response from an intelligence community perspective and law enforcement perspective that the traffickers are responsible for that.

So, the traffickers know that, that if they smuggle a terrorist in this country, they are going to fill the full wrath of the US military intelligence community in law enforcement. They don't want to deal with that.

What we also, learned is that there are easier ways for terrorists to get into the country. And so, you get a visa, a student visa, or you come through the northern border.

That's a lot easier than flying somebody into Ecuador, having them sit there, walking a thousand miles in the searing heat hoping they can cross the southern border someplace where there isn't a border patrol officer.

So, we've put in protections, and we have learned a lot about what's going on in the south. We've worked with our partners down there and that's why there's never been a terrorist attack in the United States since September 11th by somebody snuck into the country through the southern border.

The flip side, what concerns me though, is that we are looking at numbers today that far exceed what we've had to deal with in modern history, and these are people coming from all over the world. And customs and border protection is under resourced.

And to your question about how the watch list works, the watch list includes information about people who we know based on intelligence are members of a terrorist organization.

But it also, includes people who may have called that person on the phone, or who may have had an email with that person, or who may have had contact with that person.

So, if you're a terrorist and you're in the system as being a terrorist, but you're also, selling your car and I call you, my number and the person associated with that number may be flagged in the terrorist watch list.

Because the intelligence community doesn't always know the content of the conversation. They just saw the phone belonging to John Cohen called the phone of Ken Harborough, who we believe to be involved in that type of activity.

So, the people who are encountered at the border who pop up on the terrorist watch list, that doesn't mean they're a terrorist, it just means there's a piece of information that suggests that this person may need to be looked at more extensively because they've either been in contact or they have a relationship with somebody.

So, in many cases, those southern border hits on the terror watch list are people who aren't in directly involved in terrorism. Maybe they were smuggled into the country by somebody who had a family relationship with somebody from a terrorist organization.

Maybe they were some type of communication that may or may not have been connected with terrorism.

When there's a hit on the watch list, Border Patrol does not let anybody into the country until they resolve that issue.

Ken Harbaugh:

I would imagine that Ted Cruz and others know this, they've gotten this briefing, and it doesn't really matter because the political utility of this accusation is just too good to fact check.

John Cohen:

Yeah, and look how long it took me to explain it. I mean, on the one hand, it's easy to say, you should be scared because terrorists are coming across the border. And then it takes John Cohen five minutes to explain to you why that's probably not the case.

But I will tell you something that does concern me, and I was referencing it a second ago, is that the folks at CBP are under resourced. They do not have the human resources. They need more people to screen and vet these people that are coming in in massive numbers.

They need transportation capabilities to be able to remove people who need to be removed right away, but also, to transport away from the border those people who have a likelihood of being successful in their request for legal status in the United States.

They need housing, they need to be able to work with communities across the country to relocate people so we're not seeing saturation points in one or two communities, particularly at the border.

That takes money. And the longer that Congress does not provide that support, the more vulnerable we become to potential exploitation by criminal organizations and terrorist groups who do want to get people into this country.

And I'll tell you, the situation with Iran, and I know I'm jumping around a little bit, that does concern me as it relates to the southern border because Iran has a pretty extensive intelligence presence in Central and South America.

They do have a playbook on if situation escalates with the US. And keeping resources away from law enforcement and customs and border protection at a time where we are in an escalating conflict with Iran, that does cause me concerns.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, John, thank you for bringing actual facts to a conversation like this. Thank you so much. We should do it again soon.

John Cohen:

I look forward to that. Thanks.

Ken Harbaugh:

Thanks again to John for joining me.

Thanks for listening to Burn the Boats. If you have any feedback, please email the team at [email protected]. We're always looking to improve the show.

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Burn the Boats is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Our producer is Declan Rohrs, and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our audio engineer. Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers, Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia, and David Moss.

I'm Ken Harbaugh, and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.