This is later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast more what You Hear weekday afternoons on the Drive.
He was the.
Assistant Director for counter Intelligence at the FBI, where he served twenty five years as a special agent and directed all espionage investigations across the government. Frank Figliuzi is now a columnist at the National Security Analyst and author of the recently published Long Haul about Trucker serial Killers, had
him on about that a couple of weeks ago. Democrat National Convention is beginning, and Frank, given the recent actions of the Secret Service and FBI, there are a lot of questions as to how it'll go.
Well, the spotlight will certainly be on the Secret Service for sure. I mean, they've had a colossal failure. It can't happen again. They've got to get this right. But you know, you can't have a more stark contrast between an open field rally in a small town in Pennsylvania and a hardened venue convention center in a major city. So they'll have the convention venue under control. Where I'm
looking at is the softer perimeter and the protesters. So here's the latest intel with regard to security in Chicago. The protesters have been moved by a federal judge as of yesterday or just just this week a mile away. Now what am I talking about? They are expecting a minimum of twenty five thousand pro Palestinian protesters. And let
me lay this scenario out for you. Imagine when the convention starts, that hostilities begin in the Middle East with Iran lobbing missiles at Israel, which is expected, and Hesbola simultaneously from Lebanon lobbing missiles at Israel. US feels compelled to intervene militarily. And now those twenty five thousand pro Palestine and protesters on the streets of Chicago turn into fifty thousand. That's a scenario we're going to be watching.
And then so combine that with not only an international terror threat with ISIS and others, but a domestic terror threat that we know can turn violent, and.
Keep hearing comparisons to nineteen sixty eight. I disagree on a number of angles on that we are not in a war that is wildly unpopular. We're not sending eighteen to twenty one year olds to their deaths. We don't have a president that supports one or the other, nor a candidate that is at this convention supporting one or the other. What are your thoughts on a repeat of nineteen and sixty eight.
Yeah, the police back in sixty eight were wholly unprepared for what was happening and really untrained to deal with what broke out. We've had the Chicago Police chief this week come out publicly at a press conference and say they are not going to talk tolerate rioting. They have a plan to intervene quickly as soon as any violence
looks like it's breaking out. I'm confident we're not going to have that kind of repeat of sixty eight, But I would keep my eye on the issue of loan actors that like Butler Pennsylvania as the young man who tried to assassinate Trump. Those people are very hard to guard against except to keep them far away from the venue. So if the activity occurs illegally, we're going to see it happen in the soft perimeter or beyond. And I'm going to watch that pro protest crowd and see if
they turn violent and try to breach the perimeter. And then let's not forget that the FBI director has told us multiple times that within the FBI's domestic terror case slope, it's the race based and hate based domestic terror that is most lethal. That's his quote. What do we have
with regard to the convention. We have a mixed race person of color who is going to be the nominee for a party that is not going over well with some of the white supremacy, white hate based groups that we're looking at.
Frank Figliuzi is with us. He is a security expert, former Assistant director for counter intelligence at the FBI, is now an author and analyst, and you may remember we had him on to talk about his book recently, Long Haul, talking about the security at the upcoming Democrat National Convention. Now, Frank, we all witnessed what happened last week in Vienna at
the Taylor Swift Concerts. Those terrorists, as it turned out, looked like they were cultivated within the country itself, and we're starting to see some of that here in the United States. It's not foreign actors, it's cultivated and conditioned domestic actors. Are we starting to see a bigger threat from our own people than those trying to come into our country and hurt us?
For sure? I'm seeing disturbingly the online radicalization of people. And by the way, this applies to the left, to the right, to domestic terror, to international terror. The action is happening online and what we're watching is an increasing
speed to radicalization is what we call it. By that, we mean the time it takes for a young person to become radicalized from the first time they're exposed to an extremist ideology, whether they're watching a cleric talk about killing the Jews, for example, or they're watching beheading videos, to the time they're willing to act out violently themselves is increasing rapidly. So you can take a seventeen year
old young man who's seeking something in his life. You can expose into this training, to this ideology, and literally within two months they're willing to commit an act of terror that happens within our own borders.
And as was the case in Vienna with the Taylor Swift situation, they shut things down, secret service taking notes on that.
Oh for sure. I mean again, the young people that are not necessarily known. Thank god, the FBI actually tipped off the Austrians to that. So we're doing okay here from him. Yeah, it's been established that the FBI tipped off the Austrians. So that's good news of course that we have eyes on some of these people. But but you can't get it right every single time, and the bad guy only needs to get it right once. And
so yes, that is a concern here. So a bomb device, is any kind of improvised explosive, is a biochem threat. Here's the good news. This event has been designated a National security Special event. That means the entire toolkit of the federal government, including some classified techniques that will look for say a dirty bomb or some kind of improvised device, that's all going to be on the ground, even in the air in Chicago. And that does give me some high level of confidence.
Frank Figliuosi, assistant director, former assistant director for counter intelligence at the FBI, and the security at the Democrat National Committee coming up in Chicago, and I get, what's the worst case scenario?
You think, oh, my goodness, Well, a breach, So on a general level, a breach of the actual venue site is going to would obviously be horrific. But you know, we saw that on January sixth at the Capitol. They got inside. Now you can argue how they got inside, but they got me breached and they got inside, that would be worse. But let's talk on the international level.
Or anybody who has gotten their hands on some radiological device and wants to detonate a small dirty bomb in the crowd outside the venue that has a tremendous fear factor associated with it, and that's what they'll be looking for, is some kind of mass killing device outside the vent.
Frank Figliosi, thank you for joining us, and again his book is still out by the way, Long Haul, about the trucking industry and the infiltration of sex traffickers and drug traffickers as well into that industry. Will thank you for joining us again, thanks for
Having me, Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation