This is a Global Player original podcast.

Welcome to Sweeney Talks.

It's a podcast series where I get to interview people who've done serious stuff with their lives and then got into trouble.

Big trouble.

I'm not here to lecture them about that.

I'm kind of a professor of big trouble ology myself.

I've got history with the Church of Scientology, North Korea, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin,

Tommy Robinson and the Russian army. I'm here to find out what it feels like to be in the deep doo-doo.

How you survive it, and then how the hell you get out of it.

If you've been in trouble, you're not alone.

So, come along for the ride.

You might learn some new tricks.

You might have a laugh, but one thing is sure. The best stories aren't told by the well-behaved.

And once you've listened to the interview, you can hear what I really think about it. In Sweeney keeps talking. Find that exclusively on Global Player.

Tinker Taylor, soldier spy. My guest this week on Sweeney talks is Chris Steele,

the former MI6 officer who was head of the Russia House at the Secret Intelligence Service

at the start of Vladimir Putin's rule.

Long before it was fashionable, Chris understood the grey threat, the master of the Kremlin,

posed for democracy, so much so that an FSB agent once called him an enemy of Mother Russia.

After 22 years serving Britain at MI6, Chris set up a private intelligence

company called Orbis. There, he was asked to compile a report on what influenced the Russian

secret state might have on presidential Republican candidate, Donald Trump.

...