Part One: How The FBI Botched The Olympic Park Bombing | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

What this episode is about

The discussion explores the FBI's mishandling of the investigation into the Olympic Park bombing, featuring insights from guest Courtney Kosak. The conversation touches on the challenges faced during the investigation and the broader implications of government failures in handling high-profile cases.

Key takeaways

• Incompetence and politics: Hatfield chose the election over a pandemic, revealing priorities that horrify and amuse.
• An expert in viruses becomes a pawn in electoral chess—who knew politics could infect science?
• The FBI and media team up like a clumsy buddy cop duo, endangering more than just their own reputations.
• Bad police work and lazy journalism: Hatfield's life decimated, proving the pen can indeed be mightier than reason.
• In Trump's world, chaos reigns: pandemics take a backseat to litigation, showing how easily expertise gets sidelined.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Robert Evans (Host) · 52 min speaking
• Courtney Kosak (Guest) · 22 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 10:00: Richard Juel, Steven Hatfill, Courtney Kosak, 1996 Olympics
2. 10:00 – 20:00: Richard Juel
3. 20:00 – 30:00: Richard Juel
4. 30:00 – 40:00: Richard Juel, 1996 Olympics, Georgia Bureau of Investigation
5. 40:00 – 50:00: FBI, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Richard Juel, Oklahoma City bombing
6. 50:00 – 1:00:00: Richard Juel, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Oklahoma City bombing
7. 1:00:00 – 1:10:00: Richard Juel
8. 1:10:00 – 1:14:41: Richard Juel, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Courtney Kosak, Girl Gone Wild

Notable quotes from "Part One: How The FBI Botched The Olympic Park Bombing | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"

• So, you know what? I hate you. but I don't hate my guest for this episode, Courtney Kosak. Courtney, hello.

  about Courtney Kosak · at 0:08

• My book is called Girl Gone Wild. It is my coming of age memoir. It's my debut.

  about Girl Gone Wild · at 1:08

• Really interesting guy. His name is Steve Hatfield. and he was recently made special adviser to the Trump administration for pandemic preparedness. He has some relevant background here. he spent most of his career as a pathologist and a.

  about Steven Hatfill · at 1:55

• Two stories. and basically this week we're going to be talking about first the Olympic Park bombing which occurred at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. and we're talking…

  about 1996 Olympics · at 6:39

• It's become more casual. this takes us to Richard Juel. First, you know what Richard Juel would have loved if he were alive to see this?

  about Richard Juel · at 25:24

• He kind of realizes like they're not finding the owner of the bag. So he walks over to this GBI, the Georgia's Bureau of Investigation. It's like the state FBI for Georgia. And…

  about Georgia Bureau of Investigation · at 37:38

• Which is a local paper of record in Atlanta, publishes an article on July 30th in which they announced that the FBI had a suspect for the bombing, security guard Richard Juel.…

  about FBI · at 52:05

• A massive L in public and I can't accept that, you know. so for their part, the journal avoids telling anyone how they got because it's like a memo that they get that like…

  about Atlanta Journal Constitution · at 59:23

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Richard Juel — Person · Primary case-study subject (wrongfully accused hero) · 13 mentions · first at 7:50
  Central figure in the episode’s first story: the 1996 Olympic Park bombing and how media/FBI wrongly targeted him despite his role in spotting the bomb and helping clear the area.
• Steven Hatfill — Person · Secondary case-study subject (teased for next episode); referenced Trump adviser · 2 mentions · first at 1:55
  Introduced as the episode’s ‘weird’ protagonist for the broader arc: a Trump pandemic adviser who was also wrongfully accused in the 2001 anthrax attacks (covered in the next episode).
• Courtney Kosak — Person · Main guest · 3 mentions · first at 0:12
  Guest co-host reacting to and discussing the episode’s narrative; also plugs her memoir during the intro/outro.
• Mar Gaddafi — Person · Joke reference (cold open banter) · 1 mention · first at 0:46
  Used as a comedic aside about Courtney Kosak’s ‘longtime friendship’—not part of the episode’s factual narrative.
  We all did. Look, he was cool at it for one at one point in time. He was not. so Courtney, you got something to plug? You want to you want to drop that before we get into our bastard.

Books & papers

• Girl Gone Wild — Book · Primary recommendation · 2 mentions · first at 1:08
  Courtney Kosak's memoir, which she promotes during the podcast.

Companies & orgs

• FBI — Company · Case study · 3 mentions · first at 44:57
  Central to the discussion about the wrongful accusation of Richard Jewell and the media's role in high-profile cases.
• Atlanta Journal Constitution — Company · Case study · 3 mentions · first at 52:03
  Highlighted for its unethical reporting practices that contributed to the wrongful accusation of Richard Jewell.
• Georgia Bureau of Investigation — Company · Case study · 3 mentions · first at 37:57
  Involved in the investigation of the Olympic Park bombing and the wrongful accusation of Richard Jewell.

Places & events

• 1996 Olympics — Event · Setting · 3 mentions · first at 6:44
  The backdrop for the bombing incident that led to Richard Jewell's wrongful accusation.
• Oklahoma City bombing — Event · Referenced event · 2 mentions · first at 49:31
  Mentioned as a previous incident that affected the FBI's reputation prior to the 1996 Olympics bombing.
  And then Waco and Waco still very fresh in the public mind. And then obviously the Oklahoma City bombing happens a year before this bombing, right?

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Oh boy. It's Behind the Bastards. The podcast that you listen to if you're listening to it. If you don't listen to it, then you don't know what I'm saying. So, you know what? I hate you. Uh, but I don't hate my guest for this episode, Courtney Kosak. Courtney,

0:17 hello. How you doing? So, good to see you again. Good to see you again. How have you been since last we uh last we talked about somebody who was really bad?

0:26 Yeah. Well, um, lots of bad people that I hear about every day in the news, but I have been like deep into working on my book, which is just full of people from my past. So,

0:40 Oh, that's what I've been working on. Hopefully not the worst people in all of history. Um,

0:44 only a few. Only a few. I mean, you did have that longtime friendship uh with Mar Gaddafi, but you know, tragically uh that ended badly.

0:53 Um, we all did. Look, he was cool at it for one at at one point in time. He was not. Um, so Courtney, you got something to plug? You want to you want to drop that before we get into our our bastard for this episode? We got a weird one for you this week.

1:08 My book is called Girl Gone Wild. It is my coming of age memoir. It's my debut. Um, yeah. I'm so tempted to just ask you a million questions about your bookw writing process, but we'll save that for another podcast.

1:20 It's bad. Um, yeah. I'm just so excited that it's going to be out in March. It's available for pre-order and it's all thrilling.

1:30 Yeah. Uh Courtney, uh so speaking of my process, my process for writing a book is mostly to get delayed writing that book so I can continue writing podcasts. And this week the podcast that I have written in lie of

1:44 finishing my book uh is about this is a weird one, right? This is normally a podcast about the worst people in all of history. And we have a bastard for this week. And our bastard for this week is a really interesting guy. His name is Steve Hatfield. Uh, and he was recently made special adviser to the Trump administration for pandemic preparedness. He has some relevant background here. Uh, he spent most of his career as a pathologist and a biological weapons expert, training US soldiers in how to deal with biological weapons, specifically weaponized uh, viruses. And like a lot of people in the Trump world, he's recently gotten into what we might call the alt science side of medicine. In 2020, he advised the first Trump administration on CO 19 and became a major advocate of hydroxychloricquin as a treatment. Uh he was yeah, he's one of those guys. Uh and in an article a couple of years ago, the

2:36 Washington Post cited his statements as evidence supporting the idea that the Trump administration neglected pandemic response after losing the 2020 election. Quote, Steven Hatfield, aologist who advised White House trade adviser Peter Navaro, said he was intimately involved in the pandemic response, repeatedly described in the emails how election stuff took precedence over Coronairus, even as the outbreak surged to more than 250,000 new coronavirus cases per day in January. Now, with the election so close, CO is taking a backseat. Yet, the disease is rearing its ugly head again.

3:06 Hatfield wrote to an outside colleague in October of 2020. following the election which was disputed by Trump. Patville wrote another email that he personally shifted over to the election fraud investigation in November which says a lot about like the kind how the people close to Trump view themselves where was like well I'm a verologist and the pathologist and but I'll get involved in the election fraud so I guess that makes sense for me to be working on during a pandemic more than the pandemic right

3:31 the priority I can't believe that's the priority everybody's focusing on the election now I don't care that you're the virus guy and there's a virus get on the election [ __ ]

3:41 All hands on deck. Yeah. And true true to form, during that brief window, Hatfield traveled to Arizona to help organize a plan B for Trump's legal fight to retain the presidency. When a colleague emailed him on January 5th to ask why he wasn't fixing the virus, he replied that the election thing had gotten out of control and I go where my team goes, which at that point was to contest results in Nevada. Now, when it comes to this stuff, I have no trouble condemning Hatville. I don't like him. I think he's a bad person. I think he's done bad things for the world. Here's where it gets weird. He's kind of the protagonist of our story this week, right? Cuz this is we're going to be telling a story and we're going to be telling two stories really. Um and in both of these stories, the bad guy is the FBI and in more broadly our entire justice system, right? and the media and how the media interacts with the justice

4:38 system around high-profile cases. You know, when people are desperate desperately trying to figure out who did it and at a point at which, you know, the cops decide literally we need to throw some name out there and the media decides content content content, right? Like that's the evil here. We're talking about two different terrorist attacks where innocent people were accused by both uh law enforcement and journalists of having done terrible things. And Hatfield is one of those innocent people. So, he's like a bad person, but he's also really unique among members of the Trump administration and that all of them hate the media. Hatell is a really good reason to hate the mainstream media. They did him so [ __ ] dirty and it's it's a very weird story for that reason.

5:21 In this situation, they did him so dirty that we're about to talk about. Absolutely. Absolutely. Completely like destroyed his life for years for no reason. um like just based purely on bad police work and lazy reporting. Like that's that's that's what happened here. And so kind of what we're talking about in addition to the justice system sure doesn't work very well, does it? Cops aren't very good at their jobs, are they? We're also telling a story of this is how law enforcement and the media kind of feeding off of each other created a monster. Because the the present day Steven Hatfell, who was a member of the Trump administration, is created to a significant extent by how much this destroys his life and pisses him off. Like this really radicalizes him in a major way. Um, and so it's interesting to understand for that perspective, too, cuz we are talking about a bad guy, but he's not the bad guy in the story we're telling,

6:18 which I haven't done before. So, I'm excited for this kind of episode. I'm so conflicted. I feel like you're doing me dirty a little bit. You're like, "No, the Trump guy

6:26 is the Trump guy." Well, he's not the good guy. Let's be really clear. Protagonist, right? Protagonist does not mean good guy.

6:34 Okay. But he's not the he's not the wronged person in his story, but we are telling two stories. Um, and basically this week we're going to be talking about first the Olympic Park bombing which occurred at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Uh, and we're talking about the man who was wrongfully blamed for that attack and how that happened. And then, and this is where Hatville comes in, we're going to be talking about the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States after 9/11 cuz Hatville is the guy who gets blamed for that, right? And so, that's what we're talking about this week is how both of the because these are very both similar cases and they they are emblematic of similar problems that still exist within law enforcement and the media to this day. Right. So, that's what we're talking about. Oh, I'm on the edge of my seat. Let's do it.

7:21 Yeah, this will be fun. So, for our first, again, I I just started by talking about Hatfell. We're not going to talk about him anymore in this episode because the guy who gets wrongfully accused of the Olympic Park bombings, uh, is not Steve Hatfell. He is a guy who was a cop for a brief span of time. Um although not he was not really a cop either like he's we'll talk he he's a wannabe cop who gets to be it briefly and then is a security guard at the time all this happens when he actually does some an act of legitimate heroism and his name was Richard Juel.

7:52 Uh Richard Allenssworth Juel was born Richard White on December 17th 1962 in Danville Virginia. His father worked at Chevy and his mom helped uh she was like an insurance claim adjuster type person. She she had some job in that whole I don't think she was an adjuster, but she was involved in the whole insurance claim thing. Something to do with insurance. I don't know. You don't come to this to hear about what people's moms did for the insurance industry. Um, they divorced when he was four and she remarried a guy named John Juel who adopted Richard and that's why he's known as Richard Juel. Most of his life is not very interesting. The most important thing to know about Richard Juel, Sophie will pull up a picture of him. This guy is like his phenotype is cop, right? Like he he was born with cop in his blood. Like you just take one look at this man, he grows the kind of mustache that if you're like if you're

8:43 biologically a cop, your body just produces that mustache, right? Like I don't know that he ever had a choice in not wanting to be a cop. Like in terms of his character and personality, that's what he always wanted to be. For the time he's a child, Richard idolizes the police. This is the only job he wants to do, right? You're looking at the picture like like that. That is a cop mustache, right? There's just simply no other way to describe it.

9:06 He's like a Yes. Yes. Strong Chicago cop vibes. That's what he was born to do, and he's never going to quite get there, tragically, for Richard.

9:16 Um, so he idolizes the police. This is the only job he ever wants. He's one of these people who grows up believing the police are heroes surrounded on all sides by dangerous criminals holding up society and protecting the innocents through sheer force of will and commitment to the law. So, you know, he's pretty propagandized, right? Like like a lot of us were as kids. Um, and when he grows up, uh, you know, he doesn't immediately get into law enforcement. His first job, I think, is working at and eventually managing a TCBY yogurt shop. But he shows some promise that like, oh, maybe this guy, you know, maybe this law enforcement is what he's actually going to do because while a manager of the store, he stops a robbery in progress, which you're not supposed to do when managing a retail store um or a food store. You're not supposed to do that in any store. Stop a robbery.

10:07 But he does. Um I don't have any more details than that, but it gets him written up in local papers and it fuels his desire to get behind a badge. She's like, "Oh man, this is what I'm made for. Like, look at what I was able to do behind the desk at a TCBY treats shop. Give me a gun and a badge. I'll really [ __ ] some [ __ ] up.

10:25 If I can do this with ice cream, you you got to wait and see what I got." Yeah, exactly. It's amazing they didn't just hand him a gun and a badge right then and there.

10:33 Didn't Clint Eastwood make a movie about this guy? Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Um, and we'll talk about that cuz it's gross.

10:42 Yeah. When he's 22, Juel got hired to clerk for the Small Business Association where he met and befriended a lawyer named Watson Bryant. Uh he's good at the job. Uh and he earns a reputation for being always on the ball. He's very on time. He's very outgoing, always puts in 110%. But he got placed there through a temp agency. And when the contract ran up, he took a job that brought him closer to his dream career, working as a detective for the Marriott hotel chain. I did not realize. I thought that was a joke in American Dad. I didn't know hotels had detectives, but apparently they do.

11:16 That's the perfect job really for him. He should have kind of stopped there. I think

11:20 I don't want to be mean to the hotel detectives at the world, but imagine going out on a date and like so what do you for like Well, I'm a hotel detective. A hotel detective, huh? Are you like trying to figure out like what the stain was on the mattress cuz like it's come

11:35 with the black light. Yeah. Yeah. Just looking it up. You're just walking into everyone with a black light going, "Yep." Uh-huh. Yep. More more people coming.

11:45 Same. Every day. I think somebody did cocaine off that table, maybe. I don't know. Could be more come.

11:52 Um, in 1990, he gets hired as a jailer for the Habsham County Sheriff's Office. Right now, this is kind of a do-o job. You're sitting in a small smoke filled room occasionally dealing with arrestes. It's not what he wants to be doing. He doesn't like it, but it's his foot in the door. And I guess in the '9s it was maybe there were enough the cops weren't like today you would just find some police department in a big city that is offering like $20,000 signing bonuses because there's not enough cops cuz people don't want to do that job anymore. Like but I guess back then you had to really like work your way up to being a cop, right? Like for whatever reason. I don't know. Maybe it's just where he lives in Georgia. Or maybe he's just not doesn't I don't know. Maybe he doesn't go. Maybe there was an easier way to do it that he just didn't do. I don't know. Yeah.

12:42 But yeah, he he becomes a cop through working at the jail, right? Like he does this for like a year or so. Um and it's it's one of the you can tell it's frustrating him because like working at the jail, he's almost a real cop. He could like he could taste it, right? He could taste the authority. And so he starts to get overeager. One of my sources for this episode is an epic long- form article in Vanity Fair by Marie Brittter, and she writes, this is while he's he's still a jailer. Quote, "He arrested a couple making too much noise in a hot tub in an apartment building where he did part-time security work. He was arrested for impersonating an officer and after pleading guilty to a lesser charge, was placed on probation on the condition that he seeks psychological counseling." So, you get the like this guy wants to be a cop so bad it's kind of a problem. Like, man,

13:29 it's turning him into a peeping tom. First off, cops generally don't arrest people for being noisy in a hot tub. Even a cop is usually going to be like, "Hey, we got a noise complaint. Chill out." Right? Like this guy are just like busting in and arresting people. You have to imagine he had an illegally carried gun on him that he was just like, "These hot tub guys pull something on me. I'm just going to blast them." Um, we're being a little mean to Richard here. He is legitimately a hero in the end. But like this is funny. I'm sorry.

14:00 This is just this is just funny, Richard. This was a stupid thing that you did. He's dead now. It's fine. He doesn't care. Um, so if a guy is so eager to be a cop that the instant he gets a job sitting in the same room as a cop, he illegally arrests a couple for a noise complaint, that might be a warning sign not to give that person a badge and gun. But somehow Juel worked his way up to being hired as a deputy in 1991. He goes to the Norththeast

14:25 [ __ ] America. I love it. Let's go. And it's it's it's one of those Yeah. Well, he goes to Northeast Georgia Political Academy. He does well. He graduates in the upper 25% of the class. He's he said that he read the Georgia legal code for fun. Like he's obsessed with cop stuff. So, I have no doubt that when it came to the inclass portions of it, he was he aced everything, right? Like he's been he's been prepped for this forever.

14:49 Of course. Yeah. That might have been harder for him. Although this is Georgia, you know, we're not talking about a lot of cops who are like [ __ ] superstar athletes in a rural Georgia sheriff's department. Um, so he becomes a real cop. Uh, he's now has a real badge and a real gun and he is ready to get out there and fight crime. Alas, poor Richard is about to run face to face into a reality that it's I don't know if he ever really fully accepts it, right? But this is like the great tragedy of Richard Jules's life, which is that he wants to be a cop. And I say this as a guy who doesn't want there to be cops. He wants to be a cop for what you would say are the right reasons. He cares deeply about the law.

15:34 He thinks it is important to abide by the law and he wants to protect people. Right. Check.

15:40 That's why he wants to become a cop. Police. Now, and I this is not me, the leftwing radical saying this. The Supreme Court has ruled police have no duty to protect people. And it is a fact, an undeniable fact, that police all over the country break the law regularly, both in pursuing suspects and lying on the stand about them, and falsifying evidence, and planting evidence and using physical force that they are not legally supposed to be using. Cops break the law constantly. They are not there to protect people and they do not uphold the law. These are facts, right? Um, now,

16:20 Robert, did you ever have in your like young Republican days, did you ever did you think ops were good? I'm just curious.

16:28 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I I uh I wanted to be a cop when I was a kid. Right. Really? And I wanted to be a cop for the worst possible reason because at 18, if you become a cop, you get to carry a gun while off duty. And normally it t you have to wait until you're 21 to carry a gun, which is the wrong reason to become a cop, right? You would be such

16:45 That's why you shouldn't let 18year-olds become cops. You would be such a be the biggest crimecomitting cop we know.

16:53 And I when I was when I wanted to be a cop, which is again when I was like 18, 19, part of why it was possible for me to have become one, is that Dallas had just had to can a shitload of officers over a massive fake drug scandal. So like recruitment was down and they were desperate for people, right? You could have had a totally different reason.

17:12 Yeah. I don't think I would have made it long cuz like literally within like a month or two of making my first calls to the police and like setting up that starting that process, I started experimenting with drugs. And as soon as I took 2CI, I was like, "Oh, I'm not going to be a cop." Oh, what the [ __ ] was I thinking? Absolutely not. Are you kidding me? No, no, no, no, no, no. I want to do drugs. That sounds way better than being a cop. And it was for about 10 years. And then at a certain point, you have to do less drugs.

17:43 Um heard. Yeah, that's that's my that's my my dare class for kids. Kids, I'm looking I'm looking at this room. I'm seeing a lot of 17 and 18 year olds. You guys got a solid 12 years before you got to curtail your drug use, you know? So really enjoy this time. You know, test everything for fentanyl, but other than that, go wild. You know, whatever you can fit in your body, throw it in there. Don't ask questions. Just do it and run off into the sunset. It'll be great when you're 29 and maybe start start uh start pulling back on that throttle, you know.

18:14 Jesus Christ, Robert. Hit the brakes. What? Jesus Christ. I always give our child listeners good advice.

18:21 No tr. No fentanyl. No trank. No fentanyl. No trank. Maybe try crocodil. If you get a chance to try that weird Russian drug that melts your skin, try that [ __ ] You know, it sounds dope. I never got to do crocodile. I regret it now that I'm in my sober era. Um, gas station sober. Maybe they'll make gas station crocodile. Anyway, um, we were talking about how cops break the law a lot. And

18:45 anyways, again, I have my opinions on this that are grounded in fact, but I also want to like cite facts and if we're going to make a statement, like cops break the law constantly. So, a 2016 study uh by researchers at Bowling Green University looked into nearly six uh 7,000 cases of police officers being arrested and charged with crimes between 2005 and 2011. They concluded, quote, "Police crimes are not uncommon." Now, one of the things this study notes is that only about a thousand officers are arrested each year and charged with crimes. But a lot more cops in that commit. Number one, cops, it's very easy for them to get away with crimes. the number of cops who could break the law and don't get caught because they're cops is exponentially higher than a thousand.

19:29 But there's also a lot of cases and there's documentation of how often there's interviews with other cops that will talk about this of police breaking the law and having it swept under the rug, right? Well, they'll get a warning from, you know, maybe someone above them or something, but like look, you know, just get your car home. I know you're drunk tonight because you're another officer. I'll let you off, you know, as a professional courtesy, you know, protect our own.

19:52 Again, there's data on this. It happens constantly. Um, that said, the data on when cops do actually [ __ ] up enough to get charged with crimes. The data on what crimes they commit is really interesting. From a summary in a Huffington Post article by Matt Ferner, quote, "The alleged crimes cops were arrested for most frequently were simple assault, driving under the influence, and aggravated assault. Altogether, those crimes made up one-third of the total cases. There were also a considerable number of sex crime cases, including forcible fondling, and forcible rape, about 10% of all cases.

20:21 And disturbingly, the sex crimes included some victims under the age of 18. If you are looking at the vast majority of child sex abuse is people who are related to the child. When you move out from people who are directly related to the child, the most common people to abuse kids are like members of the clergy, medical professionals, and police officers. Not in that order necessarily, but yes,

20:43 because they have access and because they have plug, you know. Yeah. So, wait, sex crimes and what was the first thing you said? Oh, driving under the influence. Cops drive drunk all the [ __ ] time in simple assault. Just hitting beating people, beating spouses. You know, 50% of police officer homes have domestic violence in them.

21:01 Do you remember that South Dakota? Was he a cop or a politician? 40% something like that. Uh, which one?

21:08 That just a couple years ago, but he [ __ ] killed a guy and then drove home and they they I mean I think he got away with it.

21:16 Well, good for him. You know, we all we all would hope to be able to get away with at least one murder in our lives. I can't blame a man for that. For just wanting to kill a guy and get away with it. Most most normal thing to want. Um I don't know why I said that. So, the most common crime committed by police is also the one they get arrested for the least often, which is lying under oath.

21:37 This is so common that cops have a term for it called testying. And if you know, I have a friend who became a lawyer and was briefly a prosecutor and stopped being a prosecutor because he was like, "I just kept going. I kept sitting down with police officers and saying, "Are you sure this is accurate?" And then when it came to trial, it would be like they lied, right? Like that happened that happened so many times that I like put my ass out there as a prosecutor because a cop told me, "No, this is definitely what happened." And they were [ __ ] lying. It happens all the goddamn time. And again, there's documentation about this. This is such a problem that in New York City, prosecutors have a secret database of untrustworthy cops. Uh again, a secret database of cops that like, yeah, we if you're a prosecutor, don't let this guy up on the stand. If he's telling you something, it's like full of [ __ ] but

22:25 also we're not going to report this anywhere more broadly. In the 1990s, the Malin Commission carried out a sweeping investigation of the NYPD and it found that perjury and falsification of records were routine by police and quote the most common form of police corruption. You might want to note that those two crimes tend to be committed in order to get a conviction against a defendant. Right? If you are lying under oath and falsifying records, the most likely reason you're doing that is because there was a crime and you're pretty sure the guy you got did it, but you can't prove it. So, you're lying to make it easier to secure a conviction, right? Or you don't know the guy did it or think the guy did it. You just hate him because you're a bigot or you want to [ __ ] his wife or whatever, right? And you're doing that, you know? But the most common crime committed by cops all over is lying under oath and falsifying

23:20 records. And that those two things are generally done to get people convicted, right? Cops lie to get convictions. Um

23:29 I love how we go around saying like lying under oath is a felony. Like stealing mail is a felony. It's like no, you can totally do those things.

23:37 No, I steal mail all the time, baby. But I don't keep it for myself. I hand it out to other people who don't have enough mail. Yeah.

23:45 Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I take mail from those from from it's like it's me uh living out my Marxist practice, you know, uh from each according to their ability to have a lot of mail in their mailbox to those without as much mail in their mailbox. I think that's what Markx was talking about. I didn't make it all the way through capital. Um so I go through all this. This is a bit of a digression from Richard Juul, but it's important to note that the vast majority of criminal behavior inside our justice system is perpetrated by police officers. and not just police officers, but by people who are in the justice system who are attempting to get convictions and have to fuss with the truth in order to secure conviction because the actual evidence isn't strong enough. Right? Um, that's an important point and I know this has been a long digression, but I need to emphasize it a little further. So, I'm going to read

24:32 one quote from a very good Slate article by Mark Stern titled, "The police lie all the time. Can anything stop them?" quote, "When NYPD officers are accused of illegal behavior, the department itself usually investigates, then conceals its findings and imposes at worst a slap on the wrist, like brief paid leave. Prosecutors could separately investigate, but they have little incentive to question an officer's story. If they know an officer is lying, they cannot legally rely on his testimony. If they remain in the dark, they can still use his perjury to clinch a conviction. Moreover, prosecutors and police work together to put defendants behind bars, developing a team mentality that prevents prosecutors from scrutinizing officers testimony with appropriate skepticism. As long as officers lies cannot be proved false, prosecutors have little reason to question their account of events. As a New York assistant district attorney

25:18 told the Mullen Commission, "Taking money is considered dirty, but perjury for the sake of an arrest is accepted. It's become more casual." Uh, this takes us to Richard Juel. First, you know what Richard Juel would have loved if he were alive to see this?

25:33 Ads. He would have loved ads supporting podcasts. That would have been that would have been Richard Jules's favorite thing. Oh, tragic. We're back. And we're talking about police officers lying under oath in order to secure arrests and convictions. Right. And Richard Juul, I tell I' I've just just told you this guy wants to be a cop more than anything. He idolizes cops. He is not the kind of guy, I don't think, who would have lied to get an arrest or to get a conviction. He does. He is a true believer, right? And that's going to cause him problems, right? Cuz And I'm not saying this to I like I don't think he's a he's not a person I would consider I don't consider his ethics to be ethical, right? Like I don't think it's ethical to arrest people for making noise in a hot tub, right?

26:21 Um, and he's very serious about a lot of stuff that I don't agree with, but he's consistent. He's internally consistent. He does believe in the law, and he's not a liar, right? He's a very, he described himself as a very methodical person. He liked to plan out everything. He read the Georgia legal code for fun. And he's not going to fit in with the sheriff's department because he wants to be a good cop. And they have a very different idea about what a good cop is, right? He described the rural county he worked in as like going into back into the 70s in terms of law enforcement. In other words, this is a place where there's good old boys who enjoy limited immunity to crimes. And there's other people skin color dependent who are you're much more free to harass or hassle, right? And that's not the kind of cop Juul wants to be, right? If this were he's kind of like Sergeant Nicholas Angel in Hot

27:12 Fuzz, right? where he's like he he he's he's he's too good for the rest of the department. Except he's not very good at the job either, right? Like he has really good and very strict intentions, but he's not like the most competent at police work and he's also pissing everyone off because he takes a lot of stuff seriously that they don't take seriously. And he doesn't like it when other people are kind of more loosey goosey with the rules. Um so he gets sidelined mostly into dealing with car accidents, right? because that's the part of the job he does well and nobody else really wants to do it. Uh he works really hard. He puts in 14-hour days. He volunteers to host community events.

27:52 He's the cop that they'll he'll go talk to a school or whatever. Like he loves doing that kind of [ __ ] But his fellow officers are kind of just after they get to know him waiting for an excuse to [ __ ] can him and get him off of the force, right? Because again he's he's kind of cramping their style. and he's attempting to I the story he tells is that he was trying to pursue someone and he crashes his police car in 1995 and that's the chance these people had been waiting for right so he is demoted he loses his badge he's offered to stay working at the jail but Richard is unwilling to return to that kind of life so he resigns from the force and he gets the kind of job that you get when you're a failed cops a campus cop right Perfect.

28:38 Ah, yeah. That's the It's the circle of cop. So, Piedmont College hires him and he immediately gets a reputation. Again, he's he's super diligent. Like, he he will absolutely write people up for every infraction he sees. And he will pursue the kind of infractions. You know, college campus cops generally, you understand like at certain times and stuff, people are going to party. There's going to be underage drinking. And you don't always go after that, right? because like for one thing it's kind of impossible to police at all. So you you you kind of triage that sort of [ __ ] right? Richard can't stand any kind of violation of the rules. And so he goes after kids whenever he sees any kind of infraction. He's issuing tickets. He's trying to arrest people.

29:21 He is very aggressive about this to the point that the president of the college gets calls three or four times a week from different people complaining to him about Jules's behavior. Right? like he thinks my job is to be a cop and the real job is to basically be a babysitter and make sure kids don't die, right?

29:40 Like, yeah, that they don't hurt themselves. I'm sure they love to [ __ ] with him, though. Oh my god, he's like the dream.

29:46 Absolutely. And he, again, he he does sound like the most annoying campus cop. And it was during the camp his campus cop days that Richard would notch his one real victory in the war on crime. During a manhunt for a suspected burglar, he spotted the culprit hiding near the top of a tree. Writing for Vanity Fair, Marie Briner notes that Juel had arguments over turf with other officers. He described himself as the kind of cop who is eager to track down people partying after hours and call their parents.

30:13 And this obsess Yeah. He This all clashes with what his employers want him to do. The president of the university repeatedly begs him, "Hey man, calm the [ __ ] down. Like, ease up. This is not what we want you doing." and Richard refuses to bend, so he resigns rather than accept that some kids are going to drink on campus and maybe you need to chill out, right? Um, so once this job falls through, he finds himself back in Atlanta looking for a new job and living with his mother. Now, because of the way this all timed out, the Olympics is coming to town, right? This is the Atlanta Olympics. I don't know why the [ __ ] you'd want to hold an Olympics in a city that is has such nightmarish summer weather and horrible traffic. Uh, but they only host cities in places with horrible traffic or host Olympics in places with horrible traffic, which is why they're doing it in LA next. Maybe the only city worse than Atlanta to do

31:06 the Olympics in. But good [ __ ] luck Olympic [ __ ] I hope you enjoy it. Um so

31:13 I remember watching this one. Great gymnastics. Yeah, great gymnastics, great terrorism, all sorts of good stuff at this Olympics. So, Richard is excited for the Olympics because, you know, they're a disaster for any city's economy, right? They never really work out very well in the long run, but in the short term, they work out really well for one group of people, which is security guards, because you need a shitload of security guards standing around all of these different venues and, you know, areas of the city that have been like walled off for the event to tell people, hey, you can't be here or to help generally to help people like find figure out where they're supposed to go, right? You're kind of a glorified like uh uh map a lot of the time. Yeah.

31:55 help desk is a security guard in this situation, but you need a lot of those guys, right? Cuz it's the [ __ ] Olympics. So Juul later recalled thinking, "I thought working at the Centennial Olympic Park will look really good on my resume. I don't know that that's the case, but that's the kind of man Richard was." So he gets the job easily enough, and he brings the same attitude to this next gig that he brought to his previous career as a real cop. And his actual job, as best as I can put it together, was to stand overnight by a sound and light tower near the main stage area. the people who'd planned for the Olympic uh Atlanta Olympics did a terrible job as is always the case when people plan for an Olympics. And so the whole downtown area, the whole Olympic Park downtown, which is like 21 acres, was constantly clo it was a nightmare. Athletes are regularly late for their events cuz they

32:40 just like can't get through this [ __ ] Almost nobody who's in this park is from Atlantis. They don't know where they're going anyway. And everything's like walled off and fenced off in a weird way. It's just a [ __ ] Titanic mess. So, his job is helping to manage foot traffic and help lost people get where they're going. Um, now Marie Briner talked extensively with Richard Juel for her piece and he gives us we in some of these interviews we get clips like pieces of his day-to-day life that do not make this sound like a demanding job, right? This is on paper supposed to be kind of a do nothing gig. Quote, Juel had a routine. He would check in and fill the ice chest he kept by a bench at his station. Juel like to offer water and cokes to pregnant women or policemen who stop to rest. Those are the two guys who deserve Cokes.

33:25 Pregnant women and cops. One of them probably shouldn't have Cokes, but that's okay.

33:30 One of them probably shouldn't have a Coke. I don't know. [ __ ] it. A little bit of little bit of caffeine. I think we get too We're too protective these days.

33:37 Sushi, whatever. It doesn't matter. Eat sushi. Have some coffee. Little bit of crack cocaine. Probably not bad for you. What? That's where we

33:46 just a little bit. A little bit. It's cleaner. As Hunter Biden reminded us all, it's cleaner than regular code.

33:54 It's basically like an apple. So, very little is expected of Richard Juel in his job as security guard. But, as usual, he takes the job very seriously. This is one thing I'll say for him. He doesn't consider and in in a normal instance, maybe we'd call this sad, but he doesn't consider being a security guard to be any less serious than being a police officer. right? He treats the job the same way and thank God he did because he's going to save a shitload of people's lives. This is really like a we a wild moment of like this guy every other thing I else I've said about him is this is like the [ __ ] setup to a very depressing uh uh not Adam Sandler Rob Schneider movie, right? Um, or I guess Paul Blart Malcop might be a better [ __ ] uh comparison or whatever, but like it doesn't sound like we're setting up for this guy to have be very impressive, but he is because again, he treats this job like it's life

34:50 and death, and it's about to be. A bit after midnight on July 27th, 1996, Juel is doing his rounds and he notices that the people at Budworld, which I'm assuming was a popup bar sponsored by Budweiser, were getting kind of rowdy and loud. Now, I wanted to know what Budworld was. Uh, so in order to in an effort to do my due diligence, I Googled Budworld Olympics, which brought up this television ad, which I'm just going to get everybody so we can before we move on here. Everyone just needs a little hit of the 1990s. Just like just like one quick dose, you know, just a little bump to get us through.

35:24 Ooh, I can't wait. Okay, world. Everyone's got to add something to the party. Mexico, you've got the salsa. Tahiti, sunsets, about 2 weeks worth. France, LA, we'll get back to you. France, Greece, you're off the hook. You started the whole thing. Malaysia, yes, some of those. Norway, you're in charge of the ice. us. We've got the Bud. The Bud World Party during the 96 Summer Games.

35:56 Everybody else has culture. We got beer. That was my question. I was like, who is this most racist to? Cuz weirdly enough, I think it's Americans where it's like, oh yeah, all these other cultures got their I mean, I guess Norway is just being like ice. That's kind of [ __ ] up too. Oh, the '9s. Okay, now that we've all gotten that that that quick quick quick hot hit of the '9s, uh, let's get let's get back to the terrorist attack that we're talking about. So, Juel, Richard Juul, hears people getting drunk and rowdy at the Budworld event where you're supposed to get drunk and rowdy, right?

36:31 And worse, he sees that people have spilled out of the event itself and there's like leaving beers on the ground and wandering around and, you know, being a problem. and him being the campus cop who got fired for being too angry at people partying, he leaps into action and he goes off to report the trash and the quote carousing. And this may be the only time in history where a rent cop being overly a buzzkill works out because on his way to report the not really a crime in pro progress, he notices something. Someone has left a green militarystyle backpack lying on the ground unattended. So Richard reports the bag and a small team of law enforcement bears down on the area and they start looking around to try to find the bag's owner. In interviews after the fact, Juel would recall that he didn't take this seriously at first. They'd found a similar unattended bag a few days ago and he expected this to end

37:25 like that had. Right. So as soon as he calls out the bag and you know PE cops start trying to figure out who the bag belongs to, he winds up in an argument with a group of drunk drunk people who like smudged a camera lens. Um, and then he kind of realizes like they're not finding the owner of the bag. So he walks over to this GBI, the Georgia's Bureau of Investigation. It's like the state FBI for Georgia. And he asked the guy, "Are you going to open it?" And then here's Juel. Quote, "At that point, it was not a concern." I was thinking to myself, "Well, I'm sure one of these people left it on the ground." When Davis, that's the GBI agent, came back and said, "Nobody said it was theirs."

38:01 That's when the little hairs on the back of my head began to stand up. I thought, "Uh-oh, this is not good. So he and that agent clear a 25 foot square. They start getting people away. They're like, "Everyone needs to clear the area. Clear the area." And they clear a 25 foot square around the bag.

38:15 Nobody looks in the bag or like that's No, I mean you you you really cuz I mean who knows if that's what triggers it, right? If like opening it or whatever would set set it off or something. you you as a security guard and some random guy from the GBI shouldn't like obviously

38:31 bomb people, but like you don't you don't want some guy who has no no [ __ ] idea what he's doing with explosives to look into

38:37 I look at a I I totally agree but I don't look at a backpack and I'm like bomb but I guess in this situation you have to yes

38:44 thank god he did right like yeah it is like this is one of those things where I have to say

38:48 mo nearly everyone would have just been it's just a [ __ ] bag but it wasn't and Richard was in the right you know He was waiting his whole life of being like overly paranoid and and [ __ ] serious about [ __ ] for the one time in which it mattered and saved a shitload of people's lives. Um, so he does a circle while they're clearing people. He he starts sticking his head into different structures in the park and basically saying, "Hey, get out of whatever cuz there's, you know, there's different like you've got these like booths where people are like filming for different and like yelling at people, get the [ __ ] out now. Get the [ __ ] out now." Right?

39:21 And he deserves a lot of credit here. He flips from normal day wandering around angry at drunk people to I have to clear this area. Something really bad could be happening. And he does this before he knows there's a bomb there. He just I I think that it must just be instinct or whatever. But as a result, because of how many people he and this other guy, Davis, clear away when the bomb goes off and it's sometime after 1:00 in the morning. It's like a little after 1:00 a.m. It it doesn't harm nobody, right? But it harms only a fraction of the people who might otherwise have been present. Um like the like the the if the pipe bomb if the area had been as crowded as it was supposed to be. Uh I mean it could have been a dozen or more people dead like potentially dozens and dozens injured, you know, and like

40:08 how many people died? Uh two deaths. Um one directly and one indirectly and like 111 injuries. Um, so if they hadn't cleared the area, it killed two people and injured more than a hundred after they had cleared the area. If they hadn't cleared the area, if it was still full of drunk people and camera crews and the like, like

40:30 just a nightmare. Like it it it would have been I mean it could it it it would have been much worse. They saved a lot of people's lives, right? I I mean easily more than a dozen lives. I don't know how it's impossible to say how many, but I I would have been shocked if it had been if it was any less than that, right? They they like this really is a significant thing that Juel does. And Jules Juel and this other guy, Davis, do but Juel is the guy who notices at first. Probably nobody would have picked it out if he hadn't, right?

40:59 Because this was his area and it was his job to be on guard and he was, right? Um, which kind of justifies his entire life up to this point, right? you know, um, and that should be a happy story, right? This kind of hap hless, you know, guy who couldn't hack it as a cop, rent a cop, never got respect. He's finally a hero. He's legitimately a hero, right? They cleared an estimated 75 to 100 100 people away from the area. So again, at least another 75 to 100 people would have been in the blast radius if they had not done what they did. Um Nancy Coleman for the New York Times writes, quote, "The pipe bomb inside the bag exploded minutes later. Alice S.

41:42 Hawthorne, a spectator from Albany, Georgia, died in the blast. Millie Uzano, a Turkish cameraman running to cover the explosion, died of a heart attack soon after." Right.

41:51 So again, and that's, you know, a death from a heart attack. So potentially, assuming that hadn't happened, like you're talking one death directly from the explosion as opposed to an additional 75 to 100 people being in the blast radius, right? like not not hard to imagine how much worse it could have been. Um Juel kind of becomes a hero immediately like he it it's very clear from the jump that he's the guy who spotted this and what he had done and he gets interviewed by local and national news later that day. Uh he tells CNN, "The only thing I wish we could have done is got everybody out of the area. I feel for the victims and their families and I mean it's the Olympics. It's supposed to be a time of joy for the world and it's a very very bad thing."

42:32 Um, now obviously he's traumatized by the explosion. He's there. He's at ground zero. He sees the injuries. He sees the person who's killed. Uh, so that like he's [ __ ] up by this obviously, but he's also undeniably the hero. And in a better world, he would have gotten the validation he'd always sought and it probably would have been good for his career, right? I have trouble if this had been where the story ended. I have trouble imagining him not getting hired by a police department somewhere. only to get the good PR of bringing on this hero security guard, right?

43:03 He could definitely work for ICE now for sure, right? Well, yeah, just kidding.

43:08 Unfortunately, the world is not a just place. And instead of, you know, this leading to him actually having a career, you know, in law enforcement, uh, this nearly ruins his life, right? Like this absolutely shatters him for quite some time. So,

43:26 from the Are you about to Oh, okay. Yeah. So, as soon as the blast happens, Jules's old old boss at Pedmont College, Ray Clear, sees his former employee on TV, and he gets pissed because he didn't like Juel. They'd fallen out when Richard caught a kid smoking pot and insisted on arresting and charging the boy. And Clear was like, "No, just like cight him. You don't we don't need any arrests of students over marijuana. That's like don't don't do that." Right. And obviously Clear is in the right here, but because he doesn't like Richard Juel, he doesn't trust him. And he thinks that he's because he's kind of been he's this weird guy, right? He's like weirdly into being a cop. He's he's he's just had rubbed Clear the wrong way. And so Clear calls the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. and he reports, "Hey, this guy who everyone is saying is the hero, I think he's got a lot of attentionseeking behavior and bad

44:21 judgment and maybe you should take another look into him, right?" Basically saying maybe maybe he set it up, right? And you could almost see you can see a logic there. Okay, sure. This guy had failed out of being a cop. He wants to be a hero. Maybe he planted a bomb so that he could get everyone away from it. right now. That's a stretch and there's not any evidence ever that this was the case. So again, I think this is just a guy who didn't like Richard calling the GBI and trying to like out of jealousy or something [ __ ] up his former employee,

44:55 but the tip gets passed along to the FBI and the FBI takes it seriously and they send out investigators to look into every aspect of Jules's life.

45:03 Robert, I would never out you to the FBI. I promise. Thank you, Sophie. That that is absolutely doesn't sound like something someone who just outed me to the FBI would say.

45:12 I would never do that. I would never do that. What if I arrested a kid for smoking pot?

45:18 Poor form. Even with enemies, I think to go out of your way to [ __ ] with someone's life. Like, you should be pretty evidence. This guy was just like, "hm,

45:28 I don't know. He's got he's an attention seeker. I don't trust him." He's like, I He's like, "That's a weird guy. I didn't like him. Let me call the feds." Sir,

45:37 you were being Yeah, I was on your back for the pot thing, but you are the dick here now, right?

45:43 And uh you know, the initial investigation and honestly any responsible investigation would have looked into Juel a little, right? Cuz he was there and you always like that's it's not unreasonable to look into the guy right?

45:58 Um but being the FBI, they pursue this in the most [ __ ] up and scummy way possible. So 2 days after the bombing, Juel gets a phone call from a friend of his with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

46:12 This is like somebody that he had been social with. I think somebody that he idolized cuz this guy is a real, you know, uh, special agent, right? That's kind of what I want to do, right? And so the FBI, when they find out that there's someone in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation who knows Juul, they're like, "Hey, he likes you, right? He thinks you're his friend. Get some info out of him."

46:32 Right. Yeah. So, this guy at the GBI calls Juwel and he's like, "Hey, buddy." Who I probably hadn't talked to in weeks. Uh, I was out of work the day the bombing happened. Mind if I come over to your house and you tell me what happened? I'm just really curious about how you were such a hero. Obviously, this guy's wearing a wire the whole time, right? Um, so Juel is unaware though. He thinks that his cool friend in the GBI is proud of him and just wants to hear about his triumph. and may who knows maybe I could get a job at the GBI after this right you know having just saved all these people's lives uh now again Juel does not catch on but what's happened here is at this early stage the feds have gone from considering Richard Juul a hero to within days suspecting him of being the bomber right almost immediately he becomes their prime like there's a couple of guys earlier as we'll talk about who they'd seen but very quickly

47:27 he becomes the primary focus of the investigation really [ __ ] And the reasoning why they focus on him boils mostly down to laziness. And this is my opinion here, but I think there's some professional jealousy going on here, too. Because the FBI's out in force at every Olympics in the US. Obviously, the GBI is there cuz it's in Georgia. These are the premier law enforcement agencies,

47:52 right, in the region that are supposed to be making sure a bombing doesn't happen. They both [ __ ] up. A bomber gets through security with a bomb, enters the Olympic Park area, and sets off the bomb without being caught. And the only reason it wasn't worse, and that dozens of people aren't dead, is that a rent a cop outperformed the entire federal law enforcement apparatus. All of the millions of dollars in gear, the bomb sniffing dogs, the metal detectors, none of that did any [ __ ] None of these highly paid special agents figured out [ __ ] None of them caught anyone anyone before this happened. It was a rent a cop walking back to complain about some drunk kids who spotted the bomb and saved the day. Right. And I think that pisses off and embarrasses the FBI. Like

48:41 I think the attitude for a lot of people in the bureau is like and particularly as we'll talk about the guy who's the director of the bureau at the time is like well this looks really bad for us unless that [ __ ] was the bomber.

48:53 Uhhuh. Then then then the FBI gets to be the hero again, right? Once we once we take this guy down. Right

49:03 now, you know who would never sell you out to the FBI. The products and services.

49:10 Yeah, the products and services that support. I mean, honestly, several of our sponsors would sell you out to the FBI. Um,

49:15 all right. Anyway, here's some ads. We're back. So, the FBI is embarrassed. And this embarrassment also, it's not just that like they'd [ __ ] up and let a bomb go off at the Olympic Park and the rent a cop was the guy who caught it, but this has been a bad this is we're talking 96. This has been a bad decade so far for the FBI and for federal law enforcement as a whole. A couple of years ago, you had Ruby Ridge and then Waco and Waco still very fresh in the public mind. And then obviously the Oklahoma City bombing happens a year before this bombing, right?

49:49 The FBI fails to stop it. That's that's literally the trifecta. Yeah. Like they don't look good right now. And the fact that yet another bomber bombed yet another high-profile place that the FBI is supposed to be protecting does not make them look good. Right.

50:07 Unless this guy did it. Unless this guy did it and then we catch you and then we're heroes again. Right. And yeah, the more investigators looked into it, the more it looked like there might be a case here because everyone they talked to as they reach out to the guys, number one, a lot of Jules former co-workers don't like him and they don't like him because they were I think as a general rule shadier cops than he was, right? Um and because he's legitimately seems to have been kind of annoying, right? like he was very overzealous, but none of those things are like crimes or terrorism adjacent, right? Um, but they start putting together this because they're only looking at a narrow, and this is this kind of myopic detective blindness you get. If you're only looking at a really narrow subset of the facts, it can look well, okay, we're just looking at Juel. Oh, he he's overzealous. He really badly wants to be

50:58 a cop. He'd do anything to be a cop. Maybe he cooked all this up for the benefit of his career. And it really does seem like he's making the most of his 15 minutes of fame. He gets interviewed by CNN. Uh the AT&T's publicity team get basically works up an appearance and makes him wear a company shirt cuz he'd been a security guard for AT&T. Um I guess because AT&T wanted Americans to associate their favorite phone company with a terroristic bombing that killed people and maimed people. I don't know why. It's a weird call. AT&T.

51:30 That is weird. Marriott better given him something. Marriott for sure. Yeah. Um, that would make sense. Richard would later claim, "The idea of going on TV made me nervous. I was not the hero. There were so many others who saved lives." Um, and perhaps the FBI would have concluded its investigation without Juel catching on. Right? Again, some degree of looking into this guy is reasonable. Um, but given what happens next here, that winds up being impossible. And the reason why there's no chance to keep this under wraps and the reason why everything blows up and Jules's life blows up is that the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which is a a local paper of record in Atlanta, publishes an article on July 30th in which they announced that the FBI had a suspect for the bombing, security guard Richard Juel. Now, the journal was owned by Cox Newspapers, who had flown something like 300 people in from other papers to report out of the

52:23 journal's office. They had like sent reporters around, flown them all around the world to like study up on different sports that they could report well on the Olympics because they're putting out a daily special Olympics edition and the expense they've spent millions preparing to cover the Olympics. Right now, this is a time in which there's more money in the newspaper biz, but you got to remember whenever you're investing that kind of capital into an endeavor, you have to make a return, right? And so the new editor of the paper, John Walter, is expecting the fact that there's been a bombing. That's like a huge boon potentially to the media, right? Like this is something people are going to read about. And we're the paper of record for Atlanta. We've got to be the ones breaking the scoops. We can't get scooped by the big national papers. We can't let the New York Times take this from us, right? Get something out about

53:10 this, you know? And the the editor is this guy John Walter who is he had replaced a more traditional ethical newsman. Walter is of this kind of generation of guys who's trying to find more exciting and profitable ways to package news content as opposed to doing good journalism. Peranity Fair quote more and more the paper's influence was on what John Walter called chunklets short bits in soft news style known as eye candy. The paper published features on couples massage and how mushrooms grow in the rain. Walter had fired off several tur memos to ensure that there would be no more jumps of news stories to back pages and no more unsourced news stories except on rare occasions. I don't see any reason why you can't report hard news in a short form. One editor told me the AJ style of reporting and declarative sentences had a name too, the voice of God. It was omnisient because it allowed no references to

54:02 unattributed sources. Subject s subjects such as AIDS which often required confidentiality could not be covered properly in the paper in the opinion of several reporters. The A picked up news stories with unnamed sources from the New York Times however and reporters groused about the hypocrisy of the double standard. Now all this was going to cause problems because the journal can't let themselves be scooped in their hometown but they get reached out to. they get basically a leak from the FBI who like leaks them documents that make it clear that Richard Juel is their chief suspect, right? Like that's that's what happens is someone from the FBI talks to them. And this is a really ethically questionable thing because a person who is suspected of a crime, has not been charged with it, they certainly haven't been convicted.

54:47 Is it ethical at all to report that this guy is under suspicion right now? because you're going to nuke his life and make a huge number of people think he murdered someone and tried to murder dozens more people, right? But on the other hand, it's going to sell papers. So obviously print that [ __ ] right? And so uh journal reporter Mary Scrugs writes an article titled FBI suspects hero guard may have planted bomb. And again, it uses this kind of voice of God phrasings to where like they did they had a source that they couldn't admit that had reached out to them, but they don't say that, right? Like they don't address that at all. And I'm going to read a quote from the article. Richard Juel, 33, a former law enforcement officer, fits the profile of the lone bomber. This profile generally includes a frustrated white man who is a former police officer, member of the military, or police wannabe who seeks to become a

55:44 hero. That's so [ __ ] up. That's so [ __ ] up. Like that's not even a That's not a real profile. That's not the lone bomber. How many lone bombers have fit this profile? Like

55:55 also, yes, he's eager and like wants to be liked. I mean, that's I'm sorry. I don't think the standard lone bomber is a wannabe cop who wants to be a hero. In part because the guy who actually did the bombings, who we'll talk about later, was an anti-abortion activist who was bombing people because he thinks abortions murder. He's a Christian extremist supremacist special forces veteran,

56:21 but somehow doesn't think murder is murder. I think he's fine with murder. Like they're all fine with murder, just not fine with women having choices. We We understand what this is about. We don't have to play around with their semantics games. There was definitely going to be a manifesto though that was really involved in this and thank you. I I was worried that this was still unsolved. So I'm so glad that they figured it out.

56:45 It gets solved as [ __ ] Um Okay. Okay. I'm just bringing it up to point out like they're this profile is completely wrong. Right.

56:52 Yes. Um now as to how this all happened because we don't exactly know how they got their source. It's very likely they get leaked by someone in the FBI, but I don't think that that's been proven to a point of certainty.

57:05 The director of the FBI at this point was a toad named Lewis Free, uh, F reh. He came into the bombing primed to make bad decisions. One of his closest advisers was former deputy director of the FBI, Larry Pototts, who tried to cover up FBI incompetence at Ruby Ridge. Free made himself responsible for the oversight of the bureau's efforts in this high-profile case. He comes in is immediately like I am I am like where the buck stops with this case. I'm directly overseeing this as director of the FBI. Uh because this is like obviously given everything that's happened nothing matters more than us quickly finding a culprit right and they don't you know initially there had been like a sus a suspect who was like a drunk at a bar who the night before and made some threatening comments. So, he's their first suspect, but it turns out he's got an alibi. And this happens a couple of times, right, where they'll

57:58 find someone and he'll seem like it might this guy might have been the one who did it, and then it'll become clear that he could not have been the bomber. And Free flips out at his subordinates each time. Uh, he becomes, in their words abusive condescending and dismissive every time they tell him, "No, it couldn't have been that guy." And whenever they start to suspect a new person, Free will declare, "We have our man." He does that every time. And so when they settle on and they get this leak and they start looking in to Richard Juul, Free is like, "We've got our guy. This is him. This has to be him. Make sure it's him." Right? And that there is some evidence that suggests that Free orchestrated the leaking of information hours after the bombing, right? Cuz he does this.

58:39 That seems plausible. We we know he does this with the first time they have a suspect, that drunk at the bar. like there's a leak to so the papers know the FBI's got someone and then it's really embarrassing to him because that guy wound up not having done it, right? So, it's just very likely that he did the same thing with Juel right?

58:56 Are the Olympics like going on the whole like is that ticking clock of like slows [ __ ] down a bit? But

59:03 okay, I it's more just a matter of there was this high-profile bombing at the Olympics. The FBI still hasn't caught the guy. the Oklahoma City bombing happened a year ago and they didn't stop that. It's just this like we have to prove that we're worth all the money that the country spends on us because it really doesn't look like it right now, right? We're [ __ ] we're we're taking a massive L in public and I can't accept that, you know. Um, so for their part, the journal avoids telling anyone how they got because it's like a memo that they get that that like lists Jewel as the suspect. And they don't, again, it's this whole voice of God thing. They give no attribution and they don't cite a source. Uh, Atlanta magazine describes their reporting as quote, "Leaving the reader to wonder whether the claims came from a legitimate law enforcement enforcement official or from a proclamation of God." It's this and I I

59:56 have so many issues with like the way a lot of media works with like objectivity in this book and this is another example of that of like no this is the way our paper sounds right we don't site anonymous sources we don't say that we've you know been leaked something because that would be kind of that would be breaking this voice of God that is so important to us otherwise people aren't going to trust the journal and so what that does here is the FBI leaks to them instead of saying yeah the same guy who leaked to us the same people who leaked leaked to us the name or the a suspect who pro who was exonerated have leaked again a suspect. Uh but this one's totally it guys but we're not going to tell you where it came from. Right?

1:00:35 Nobody's doing well here. You see how like it's the media and particularly this one publication are being slimy as [ __ ]

1:00:44 because it's good for business and because they've made a series of bad decisions editorially and the FBI is just desperate to have to make it clear, no, we're doing our jobs. We're on the ball. You're safe. We we know what we're doing. We know we [ __ ] up and let a bombing happen, but you know, it's really not our fault because it was probably the security guard. How could we have known? You know, right? Like that's that's what they're trying to do. So you've got

1:01:04 it's like the headlines where it's like the the people in Gaza were bombed, but it's like by who?

1:01:12 Well, exactly. Yeah. Right. Anyway, sorry. Don't mean to bring down the No, no, no, but like it it is this all of these are like continuing problems with a lot of legacy media, right? like this uh like the the the papers brand and reputation uh

1:01:30 is what matters more than like making sure that we're doing things ethically and obviously traffic money makes sure that makes means more than making sure we're doing things ethically right these these these articles will sell people will buy our paper if we're covering this case so let's just if if that means destroying Richard Jules's life [ __ ] him right um so you've got in the FBI you've got the director pressuring ing every lead to be the guy. Uh, and Juel, you know, seems like their best bet. Uh, so that article drops on the 30th, uh, the same day that two FBI agents show up at Richard Jules's house and ask him if he wants to make a training film for them.

1:02:12 So, he doesn't actually get to see this article that the journals published saying that he's the FBI's main suspect. But on the same day, they show up early at his house and like, "Hey, you did such a good job. Would you make a training video for us about how you spotted the bomb? Yeah. Why don't you come in to the station and because we just we're such big fans of you. Maybe you've got a career in the bureau, Richard. Right. Obviously, there's no training film. They want to interview him to see if he will slip up or be inconsistent or lie under the guise of recording his wisdom as a training video for new agents. Jules started to realize something was up when his car was tailed by four other FBI cars on the way to the office. And they're like, "Oh yeah, don't worry about it. It's fine." And he's like, "That seems weird. I I feel like you don't need four or five cars to take a guy to do a [ __ ] interview."

1:03:02 Um, and then they end the interview, this this training video by asking him to sign a waiver of his rights. Nope.

1:03:09 And then he's like, "Wait a second, that's no actually. I think I want a lawyer now." And as soon as he does that, they pull the standard cop. Why do you need a lawyer, Richard? You didn't do anything, right? You know, like,

1:03:23 oh my [ __ ] shitty. And this is he's this guy, it takes him so long to realize what's happening because he trusts the system. He trusts cops. He likes he idolizes these feds. And I I'm actually surprised that he even got it then. But you have to imagine the dawning horror as he realizes like, "Oh my god, they were lying to me about all of this. They think I did it and they're want they're trying to trap me. Like it's it's it's pretty [ __ ] up. Like I I don't have a lot of inherent sympathy for the whole desperately wanting to be a cop thing, but you have to be sympathetic to a guy like Juel who believes so strongly in this just saves a bunch of lives and then the his reward is this system he idolizes absolutely turning on him.

1:04:08 How long does this go on for? About 3 months. Oh my god. So for 3 months, Jules's life is turned upside down. FBI agents stake out his house. His house is searched. Everything related to him is searched, right? Um like they tear up his home. They tear up like they they're searching the houses of people who are like close to him, right?

1:04:29 Yeah. He can't go anywhere without being surrounded. He becomes an object of obsession for reporters at the journal. Not only is the FBI always outside of his house, dozens and dozens of journalists and cameras are always staking out his house waiting for him to leave, waiting for any chance to shout questions at him. And the journal but turns themselves into the paper of Richard Juel. They are publishing multiple articles a day about this one guy on August 1st. So that's the day after he has his that first article drops in the day after he goes to the FBI office. On August 1st, the same day he's raided by the FBI, the journal publishes a piece on Richard Jules's history as a campus cop titled, "A bad man to cross on the beat." Here's Atlanta magazine. Students were also quoted as saying that Juel went to extremes. He was very macho and he could get very belligerent. Pedmont College junior Nikki Lane said, "I've seen him

1:05:24 go from calm to angry, back to calm, back to angry in a matter of seconds." And like I get that he's a dick and he like tried to bust people for smoking pot, but like that doesn't that doesn't mean he's a bomber. Like you're going back to like he was a bad man to cross. He tried to arrest a kid for weed. That's not that's pretty far from pipe bomb.

1:05:45 Yes. Yes. Jesus Christ. Another paragraph from that article for with Atlanta magazine gives you a good idea of how insane the coverage went. And this is all AJC. Uh, AJC columnist David Kindred in his second column on Juul in two days compared the scene to the time law enforcement officers sought evidence against Wayne Williams, the man convicted of two murders in Atlanta's missing children case when federal agents came to this town to deal with another suspect who lived with his mother. Like this one, that subject was drawn to the blue lights and sirens of police work. Like this one, he became famous in the aftermath of murder. And like, yeah, it's just it's the yellowest journalism you could possibly do.

1:06:27 basic life is just hell for three straight months there's articles not just in the AJ but in national papers digging into his backstory talking about every embarrassing thing he ever did talking to everyone who worked with him who didn't like him the whole country reviles him he is a a subject of mockery and con on the Tonight Joe Jay Leno gives him a nickname the unidoffus right And again, this man's crime was saving a bunch of people's lives from a bomb.

1:07:01 Like the unidupist. The unidupus. Like, per the New York Times, government officials and news organizations, descended on the apartment Juel shared with his mother. Dozens of FBI agents scoured the home and towed away Jules's truck. In an apartment complex overlooking his building, four stations, ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC, paid a tenant $1,000 a day to set up a command post in her unit. Yet, he was never charged. Inside, Juel watched TV, he read, he played video games, he couldn't go outside. Not without setting off a high-speed car chase of government vehicles and media vans anyway. And that's just so [ __ ] up. Like, he did nothing. He didn't do nothing. He saved people's lives and everyone in the country hates him now.

1:07:46 Um, I feel kind of conflicted because you know like that murderer in Washington who killed those four college girls or kids. God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh Coberger, right, is his name. Yeah. Brian, something like that. Yeah.

1:07:59 So, all the things Idaho Idaho guy. Yeah. Or Oh, yeah. It was Idaho. You're right. Um

1:08:06 Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. But like they're doing these things, you know, like I read articles where it was like a teaching assistant that was like, "Yeah, he was creepy as fuck." And in his case, I think that's correct. But like,

1:08:19 yes, all those tactics turned on an innocent person. That's horrible. Well, and that's the thing and it you don't have I and with I I I I never like it when they do this with someone who hasn't again at least Coberger I think by the point most of that came out had been charged and arrested. You have to remember Juel has not been charged. He's never charged. Right. And it's one thing and we can there is I I still have a lot of issues with reporting on people who have been charged with crimes like this in the breathless way the media does when they have not been convicted, have not had their day in court cuz they are still legally innocent. But this guy hasn't even been charged with [ __ ] You shouldn't be doing this at all when someone's just a suspect. Like that is so that is so that's such [ __ ] malpractice.

1:09:05 Yeah. Um agreed. It it's just really vile. Um, on October 27th, uh, prosecutors send a letter to Jules's lawyer. Not to Juel, not to the public. They just send his lawyer your letter saying, "Hey, he's not a suspect anymore, by the way. We're done."

1:09:21 No. Yeah. The FBI makes no eventually they give kind of like a half-hearted apology. They admit some wrongdoing, right? Um, but they don't they take no effort to be like, again, the responsible thing to do would be like, "Oh [ __ ] we really got to we got to do a fullcourt media press to let people know this guy is not suspected." They're just like,

1:09:42 they're like mean girls in high school. They're terrorists. Um, now Juul does sue them. He w sues the the Justice Department. He wins a bunch of money. He sues several papers, including the AJ, and he settles out of court. He does well off of this, right? like he does

1:09:57 like and you know he lives out his life and I'm not going to talk about the rest of his life cuz the man deserves [ __ ] privacy after that but he uh he does get some degree of vengeance for what they do but like man you have the trauma of of this like cuz who can imagine unless you have been unless the entire country has suspected you of being a mass murdering terrorist for three or four months like you can't know what that's like you know what kind of damage that does to you and And then Clint Eastwood made that [ __ ] movie.

1:10:28 And then Yes, Clint Eastwood. So, fairly recently, uh Clint Eastwood made a movie uh about this.

1:10:36 It's literally called Richard Jewel. Yeah, it's called Richard Juel. Um Clint makes a movie uh in 2019 uh about this whole case, right? Because I mean, conservatives are like this story because they hate the media. And this is a great example of the media being just as bad as they they like to act like it always is. Um, now they didn't go the media didn't go after Juul because he was a conservative. They went after Juul because the FBI sent them on his case and yeah, they were feckless and only cared about money. Um, but Clint's what what's really interesting to me about Clint's movie is that it does kind of the same thing to one of the journalists uh at the Atlanta Journal Constitution that they had done to Richard Juel, which is like defame him

1:11:25 or her. My god. So, the author of the first article that like listed uh him as the suspect uh was written by Kathy Scrugs. uh she's the reporter who did this and as far as we know she just got a or she and the I think she worked with a colleague got like a tip that probably traced back to an FBI uh person who had been directed by Free to put the tip out there, right? That's probably what happened in the film. Kathy Scrugs is shown as going up to an FBI agent at a bar a couple of days after the bombing and saying, "Give me something I can print." Uh, she's played by Olivia Wild, by the way. The FBI agent played by John Ham says basically, "I'll give you the name if you [ __ ] me." And so, yeah, she starts like touching him and he says, "Richard Jewel, right?" And then they go, they go, "Fuck." Right.

1:12:21 Uh, so basically, it shows Kathy Scruggs, a real woman, as played by Olivia Wild, sleeping with a source in order to get Richard Jules's name, which is not what happened. No one's ever alleged that being what happened. That was invented uh by our old friend Clint Eastwood or whoever wrote the [ __ ] movie just because the the story didn't seem bad enough as it was. And because I guess if you talk about what actually happened, then you have to be deeply critical about the FBI because this is ultimately their fault as much as anything else. And fundamentally the profit motive in journalism, right? Like both of those things are the bastards here. But Clint's not interested in that.

1:13:00 Let's make it a woman. Yeah, it's it's a woman. It's a it's this woman who couldn't keep it in her pants.

1:13:06 [ __ ] journalists ruining the world. Classic [ __ ] journalist sleeping with the FBI to get a name.

1:13:13 I was going to say [ __ ] journalists. My favorite kind. Uhhuh. Yeah. Anyway, uh that's the first part of these this story. You know, we'll be talking about uh Steve Hatfield and the anthrax attacks um next episode. But yeah, how you feeling? You you you happy?

1:13:35 I totally forgot about this guy. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I know. It's wild. We haven't even gotten to him yet,

1:13:42 but this story is like the precursor. Okay. Yes. Well, kind of. Yeah. All right. I feel like we just went on a wild ride. I'm I'm ready for the next part.

1:13:53 Excellent. Well, uh we'll get to that on Thursday. Do you want to plug your pluggables one more time for everybody?

1:14:00 Yeah. Uh I just my book, you guys. Maybe check out my book. It's called Girl Gone Wild. I tell all my secrets of the last decades that I've been on this planet. So, it's available for pre-order.

1:14:15 Heck yeah. Check that book out. And uh yeah, you know, go don't go to the Olympics.

1:14:24 Watch it at home. Safer. Yeah. Or steal it off of the internet. Either way. Bye.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Part One: How The FBI Botched The Olympic Park Bombing | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"?

Robert Evans (Host), Courtney Kosak (Guest).

What is "Part One: How The FBI Botched The Olympic Park Bombing | BEHIND THE BASTARDS" about?

The discussion explores the FBI's mishandling of the investigation into the Olympic Park bombing, featuring insights from guest Courtney Kosak. The conversation touches on the challenges faced during the investigation and the broader implications of government failures in handling high-profile cases.

What is mentioned in this Behind the Bastards episode?

10 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Richard Juel, FBI, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Steven Hatfill, Courtney Kosak, 1996 Olympics. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Part One: How The FBI Botched The Olympic Park Bombing | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"?

The episode runs 1 h 15 min; the transcript is about 14,807 words in 176 timestamped sections.

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