EP:7 - Who Watches the Watchers? Intelligence Agency Overreach

Provoked with Darryl Cooper and Scott Horton

Scott Horton

News, History, Politics

4.7 • 567 Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2025

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The intelligence community's role in shaping American foreign policy and domestic politics takes center stage in this eye-opening conversation. Scott and Darryl begin by honoring Ron Paul's 90th birthday, reflecting on his unwavering commitment to non-interventionism and his prescient warnings about blowback from American military adventures abroad. As they discuss his consistent opposition to war—from Lebanon in the 1980s to his accurate COVID-19 predictions—they paint a portrait of a principled statesman whose views have been vindicated time and again. The conversation shifts to Syria, exploring how Western intelligence agencies orchestrated chaos by supporting jihadist groups against Assad's regime. Drawing parallels to William Van Wagenen's new book "Creative Chaos," they examine how the CIA's strategy wasn't simply regime change but the deliberate fragmentation of Syria into warring factions—creating permanent instability that serves regional interests while devastating civilian populations. The hosts don't hold back in describing the human cost of these policies, from displaced families to the rise of ISIS. Most provocatively, Scott and Darryl connect these foreign policy machinations to domestic politics through Russiagate. They meticulously deconstruct how intelligence agencies allegedly fabricated evidence against Trump campaign officials like Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, while destroying the lives of ordinary campaign volunteers through endless interrogations and legal expenses. What emerges is a troubling picture of unelected officials operating beyond democratic oversight to determine which leaders are acceptable both abroad and at home. Whether you're concerned about America's role in the Middle East or the integrity of our democratic institutions, this discussion raises profound questions about accountability in our intelligence services. When agencies that operate in shadows decide they know better than voters, what becomes of representative government? Listen now to explore what happens when the watchers themselves go unchecked. Chapters: 0:32 Episode Introduction 9:07 Ron Paul's 90th Birthday Celebration 17:05 Syria's Civil War and Western Intervention 37:26 The Oded Yanon Plan and Regional Chaos 53:34 Russiagate Origins and CIA Involvement 1:05:39 The Framing of Trump Campaign Officials (Cleaned up w/ the Podsworth app and re-released November 20, 2025. ⁠https://podsworth.com⁠) 👉 Subscribe for more honest, unfiltered conversations that push past the noise. 🔹 No safe spaces. 🔹 No corporate filters. 🔹 Just raw, informed, and fearless conversation. Provoked show website: ⁠https://provoked.show⁠ Darryl's links: X: ⁠@martyrmade⁠ ⁠https://subscribe.martyrmade.com⁠ Scott's links: X: ⁠@scotthortonshow⁠ ⁠https://scotthortonacademy.com⁠ ⁠https://libertarianinstitute.org⁠ ⁠https://antiwar.com⁠ ⁠https://scotthorton.org⁠ ⁠https://scotthorton.org/books⁠ ⁠https://www.scotthortonshow.com⁠ 🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 ⁠https://streamyard.com/pal/d/4904399580430336 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Hey, welcome the show.
0:32.4	I'm Scott from the things and he's Darrell from some other stuff.
0:36.3	How you doing, man?
0:37.4	Doing all right. I just got out of a three-hour visit with the dentist, but I'm not doing too bad. Dude, I got to say, like, I know your thing is anti-war and my thing's kind of become anti-war too. That intro makes me want to go start a war. What's that hell of war? Intro. Listen, I told my buddy Josh to write us a new song, which he did, but he's waiting on the guy to do the drums. So it'll be a little bit different. All right. Nothing wrong with one. Let's see about the intro. I got a real good intro guy, too, or a couple of them. So we're going we got a good start but we're going to I think we're going to end up changing
1:14.0	it up a little too intense for my tone my my idea of the show is really just more you
1:20.7	and me shooting this shit a little less intense well the you know the subject matters
1:24.8	important stuff but yeah speaking out there reminds me more of like breaking news.
1:30.9	Where it's more like, man, remember that one thing I'm still mad about?
1:34.8	Yeah.
1:36.8	Speaking of subject matter, what are we talking about?
1:40.6	Well, so first of all, we got to talk about the great Ron Paul, the greatest American who ever lived and is still alive and is turning 90 and we're celebrating his birthday this weekend in late Jackson.
1:50.7	And so me and Dave Smith and Keith Knight and Dan Sanchez and of course Tom Woods and, you know, all kinds of great libertarians.
1:59.7	Josie, the redheaded libertarian, and I'm sure Clint Russell's going to be there, Dan McNight from Bring Our Troops Home.us, and, you know, a bunch of people are going to be there celebrating good old Ron and his birthday and eating barbecue like we like to do. And it reminds me about how 20 years ago, I caught the tail in just, you know, you picture that hurricane, those arms.
2:19.0	I caught the tail of one of those arms on the way home from Hurricane Katrina,
2:23.0	on the way home from Ron Paul's birthday.
2:25.4	And damn near drowned in my little green truck, man, trying to make it home down 71 there.
2:31.0	While then, you know, Katrina got hit hard.
2:33.5	And that was right after, you know,
2:36.2	the Cindy Sheehan Camp Casey thing was going on at that time and all that.
2:39.8	So finally, confidence in Bush broke after five days of not doing a damn thing to help the people
2:46.2	in New Orleans.
2:46.9	And people are like, wait a minute, this guy might not be the most competent administrator in world history after all.
	...

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