Episode #20 – Raymond Holcomb, FBI Special Agent, Counterterrorist, & Homeland Security Advisor

This week, we’re bringing you an extra special episode of the podcast with former FBI Special Agent Raymond Holcomb, president and managing director of 1^st Watch Global.

Ray has over 30 years’ experience as a law enforcement and intelligence officer. He served for over 23 years as an FBI Special Agent; 8 as a Strategic Planner with the US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and 4 as a state Homeland Security Advisor.

His FBI career included 15 years investigating foreign espionage, major drug trafficking organizations, organized crime and National Security matters. He also served as a member of the FBI’s New York office SWAT team and was appointed Commander of the team from 1998 to 2001. Under Ray’s leadership, the NY SWAT team assumed an expanded role, being involved in high risk domestic arrests and providing overseas security and enhanced investigative capability for FBI teams deploying internationally in response to terrorism.

Together with Ray, we take a serious and at times unsettling dive into the following topics:

The FBI during the Cold War
Moles, rogue agents, and defectors from the USSR
Existent and new threats posed by the axis of Russia, China, and Iran
Marxist/Anarchist influence in social justice movements and academia
Antifa: its history, foreign financing and control, KGB-playbook organizational tactics, and the mainstream media’s reticence to cover the facts
The Proud Boys & ‘lone wolf’ operators
Foreign gaslighting of broad sections of the public to advance political aims and cover up the truth
Hate and extremist groups in America
1^st Amendment issues
Censorship
Conspiracy theories and their effects on American culture
Ray’s service abroad in countries identified and classified to conduct counterterror ops
Al Qaeda and the bombings of the USS Cole and the US Embassies in Kenya Tanzania
9/11 – stories of victims & survivors, including that of his former commander John O’Neill who retired from the FBI to become the director of security at the World Trade Center who tragically died in the attacks after warning of the threat of Al Qaeda for many years
His team’s interrogation of Saddam Hussein
America’s retreat from the world stage
A final message and warning about the future