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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
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All right, guys.
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You've got a special guest on the podcast today.
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His name is Scott Payne, AKA Hillbilly Donny Brasko, okay?
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So he is a retired FBI special agent who spent 28 years of law enforcement investigating drug
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trafficking organizations, human traffickers and domestic terrorists.
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But much of that work was done undercover, okay?
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And that included him infiltrating neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux
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Klan and the base and also biker gangs like the outlaw motorcycle club.
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And he is the author of a new book, which details everything that I just talked about
0:53
called code name, pale horse, how I went undercover to expose America's Nazis.
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And I joked with him off air because I get a lot of pitches, okay, I get a lot of pitches
1:02
for people to come on the show.
1:04
And you know, I'll get probably 20 to 25 pitches of authors or documentarians or athletes
1:09
or different people for every one that I bring on, okay?
1:12
Just a bunch of people want to get on the show now, but not everything's a good fit.
1:15
And it really doesn't take much for me to get rid of a pitch.
1:18
But the pitch I got from his publisher, I was about halfway through reading it.
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And I was like, absolutely, this is going to be super interesting.
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And this was before I knew that this was a faith based guy.
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But really in this conversation, we get into, you know, I got into law enforcement, how
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I got in the FBI, what kind of brought him to the undercover world.
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But we look at different misconceptions about what undercover work entails, how you get
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into it.
1:38
But then we looked at some of the real life sketchiness that is that world and what happens
1:43
if you do find yourself on the opposite end of a gun or someone telling you, you have
1:46
to do this drug or I'm going to know you're a fed.
1:48
So we get into all of that, but then we get into specifically, okay, what was it like
1:53
being in the Fed, learning from people like Joe Pastone, Donnie Brasko, like that was one
1:58
of his instructors, but then, okay, now we're going to infiltrate biker gangs.
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And he told the story in the podcast that was incredibly sketchy.
2:07
It's in the book as well.
2:08
But basically he was taken down into a small basement and he thought he wasn't going to
2:12
make it out.
2:13
Okay.
2:14
And he's got a recording device on him and if they find that recording device, that could
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literally be curtains for him.
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But we talk about that.
2:20
We talk about what is a 1% or and how that basically is, you know, used in the biker
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community and things like that.
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But we spend some time there in the middle talking about, dude, this is your Christian,
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your Christ follower.
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You go to church when you're at home, but your job is lying, right?
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The way that he described it is build and betray.
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That's what undercover work is.
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You build relationships so that you can betray them so that people that are breaking the law
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can face justice and like, how can you do that as a follower of Christ?
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But then we started talking about neo-Nazis, white supremacists.
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He actually joined the KKK at one point.
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So we talk about that story, but then we talk about acceleration.
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So these are people that are not just like racial separatists.
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These are people that want the entire system to fall because they feel like that's the
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only way that the whites can be, you know, elevated and different things like that.
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And we talk about kind of their, their super jacked up theology and all these types of things
3:12
because they pretend to be Christians, even though they're clearly, clearly not.
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But then we also talk a little bit toward the end about, okay, during the riots, the
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George Floyd riots after, you know, he died and overdosed in police custody.
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We talked about, okay, Antifa and BLM are killing people, burning buildings, taking
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over police precincts, causing $2 billion plus of damage.
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But then the Biden administration is like, Hey, look over here, well, it's white supremacists
3:35
that we need to be worried about.
3:37
We need to be worried about dorks in the woods of Alabama, potentially getting together to
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write mean things on the walls of synagogues or on, you know, schools that are predominantly
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black or something like that, and it just felt like a distraction tactic.
3:49
So it was a very interesting answer to hear from him.
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But then at the end, I asked him like, Hey, man, you put a lot of people away because you're
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undercover work.
3:56
Some of these people are out now.
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Some of these people will be coming out.
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You're retired now, but you're a public guy, like your faces on your book, like, you know,
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these people can easily find where you live.
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They know where you live.
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You talk about where you live and those different things.
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How do you maintain safety?
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Like how do you maintain this idea that, okay, me, my wife, my kids, you know, my loved ones
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that were all safe.
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And so I really enjoyed his answer to that.
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So guys, I really enjoyed this interview today.
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I'm thrilled that we were able to pull it off for you, but I'm not going to keep him from
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you any longer.
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So without further ado, let's get into it.
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Scott Payne, welcome to Undaunted Life and Man's podcast.
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Thank you, sir.
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Hey, buddy, I think we hit it off off air.
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And so now we just have to carry that momentum on into the interview because you did a little
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bit of research on us and you said you're following us now.
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So I don't know if that's a good thing because you used to be an FBI agent.
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Is that like I'm following you because I'm on some sort of secret list or you're following
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us because you like the content.
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I'm following you because I like the content and hey, if I could be following me right now,
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who knows?
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Hey, you know what?
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I think I made my way on a couple of different lists, but it's funny because I was telling
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you off air and I mentioned it in the introduction.
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This was one of the quickest.
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Yes, I will have this guy on the show of my entire career because as, you know, as time
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has gone on, it's like, okay, I would bring on one pitch for every five pitches I would
5:10
get, you know, now it's like 20 or 25, I get pitched 20 or 25 different people to come
5:14
on the show for everyone that I bring on.
5:16
This one was like, boom, snap.
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Let's get this guy on here.
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Interesting background and then reading the book was obviously fantastic, but let's let's
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start small and then we'll ease our way into your career.
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What was it like growing up, Scott Payne?
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Not bad, you know, I was an 80s guy, so high school in the 80s, late 80s, was pretty cool.
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But now I grew up in a Christian home.
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My parents, well, actually both of my grandfathers were pastors, what a little claim to fame
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for the, my mom's side of the family, the Kelly family is, my grandfather got a shout
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out on the Gaither Show one time.
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And they were like, hey, we were up in a tent revival and, you know, I was like, oh, man,
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that's my grandpa, you know.
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But I grew up like that in a musical family, very musical, went and sang at churches, helped
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open churches, stuff like that.
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My first seven years of school, I went to a Christian private school, Washington Avenue
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Christian School in Greenville, South Carolina.
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And then around eighth grade, I went into public school and, you know, there's been quite a
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few bumps in the road, but it's my faith that's always taken care of me.
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I mean, I've strayed and done some pretty dumb things.
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And as I like to say, the Lord laid the smack down on me and I got humbled very quickly.
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So, you know, you know, you know, growing up playing sports, probably started playing
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music around seventh grade.
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And to this day, at 54 years old, me and my high school friends are close knit group.
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There's probably like eight of us.
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We are all still super tight.
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That's pretty unique.
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I mean, when you see a guy basically in their thirties that still has friends that's shocking,
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much less as you get older and grow, especially if you go all the way back to high school.
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So the when we'll get more into your faith because that has a lot of through points into
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the work that you did.
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But eventually you were drawn towards law enforcement, but that can take many forms and
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you were drawn specifically towards the federal law enforcement to the FBI.
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So I know we're kind of speeding into your story that, you know, it takes a lot longer
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to get there.
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But I guess what drew you to law enforcement and then why not law enforcement on the local
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level?
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Why the Fed?
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I actually was a local cop.
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I started at the sheriff's office in South Greenville, Greenville County Sheriff's office
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in South Carolina.
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Man, you know, you do this whole dive into a book writing thing and going back and looking
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at your life stuff.
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Some of it's pretty clear, you're like, man, I've always kind of been an underdog guy.
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I've always had that kind of shepherd mentality, that livestock guardian dog, if you will.
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A bully of bullies, not saying I didn't bully, and I'm not proud of it when I did, but for
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the most part, I just remember being like a bully of bullies.
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I get to college playing football, but I really just went to college, so I'd have four more
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years to figure out what I was going to do in my life, and while I was there, I came
8:22
across, and I became a bouncer as well, which I mean, you know, it's not the, it's a pretty
8:28
seedy environment, some of the places I worked, but I came across an elective that was law
8:36
enforcement and criminal justice, and I just really liked it, and then the more I got into
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it, went and done some ride-alongs with cops, and I was a deputy sheriff for five years,
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so uniform patrol three, and then two, I was in vice, my last two, I was a vice in narcotics
8:52
investigator, so now I'm already starting to get into that dope game, undercover game,
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you get certified at the state level, and I guess I always, I guess in my mind I always
9:04
pictured to go on federal.
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I didn't remember that, but I found a note, I found a note in one of my old books, it's
9:09
like I'm going to be in the feds in five years, and I'm like, I don't, I don't even remember
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writing that, but generally speaking, at that point in my life, you're looking at where you're
9:18
going to be in five years in law enforcement, because at my sheriff's office, like many,
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you don't get those raises every year, the county council gives themselves raises, but
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not the cops, and it got to a point to where I could have literally, if five years in, I
9:31
could have stepped out and came back in as a guy with a four-year degree, and I would
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make as much if not more money than I was making as a five-year deputy, so, but I applied
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with the FBI, and I never got a chance to fill out any other federal agencies, and, and
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the rest is history as they say.
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Rest is history had a multiple decade career doing that, and we'll get into that work,
9:53
but sometimes when we get into discussions, I mean, I talk to people that are like, you
9:58
know, country music stars, or athletes, or authors, or things like that, there's always
10:01
misconceptions about what it is that people do, and what the work looks like, working
10:07
for the FBI.
10:08
What are some of the common misconceptions, because we live in this, you know, TV and
10:12
movie culture, where everything is super dramatized, before we get into the other undercover stuff,
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just working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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What are common misconceptions?
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Well, there's plenty, but I love it when you go and you're like, you're watching a TV show
10:26
or a movie, and they're like, I need HRT here in 30 minutes, and you're like, I don't know
10:31
about 30 minutes, unless we're right around Quantico, but, or, you know, I need to go
10:35
up on this phone right now, and you're like, man, a Title III wiretap, I mean, we're talking
10:40
5080 page affidavits, you've got to walk it through, it's got to get, I mean, a slew
10:45
of approvals, and then you finally get up on a phone, if you've got the right number,
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and within 15 days, you have to do a 15 day report, and in another 15 days, you got to
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re-up or take it down, so it's, it's, there's a lot of misconceptions like that, but I will
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say that TV's gotten better, you know, the 80s, I mean, everybody's got their finger
11:07
on the trigger, everybody's muzzling everybody, it's just terrible tactics, and now there's
11:12
there's enough consultants out there that they're looking pretty real.
11:16
Yeah, the funny thing is, it's hard for me because I was born in 86, and so I didn't
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grow up watching those 80s action movies, right, I have to go back and watch them now, and
11:26
they're just terrible because like the UFC is a thing now, so we know all those roundhouse
11:31
kicks are not like a real thing, people aren't flying through windows when they get teeped
11:36
or things like that, so it is kind of interesting how things have evolved.
11:39
Okay, but so now you're in the Fed, you're doing that type of work, but you are, I guess
11:44
you were being summoned, but you also felt personally called to doing some undercover
11:48
work, and I, you know, you can tell us kind of what does that look like, do you just raise
11:51
your hand and be like, I would like to go undercover, please, or are you kind of like
11:54
identified by the Bureau, and let's kind of keep the common misconceptions thing going.
11:58
What are some of the common misconceptions about, okay, I'm doing undercover work, but
12:02
what does that entail?
12:04
Okay, well, let me start with the only thing you're required to be when you were hired
12:11
as an FBI agent is to be a case agent.
12:15
If you take on collateral duties, which I was like, I did a ton of collateral duties,
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but I was a case agent first, so undercover program is voluntary, I wouldn't necessarily
12:25
say that people came looking for me because that's, I was trying to get into the program.
12:31
The FBI certification process is very extensive, not knocking any other federal agencies, I've
12:37
got friends and all of them, but it's a, it's a, there are a lot of blocks to get checked,
12:44
and we actually, just to get a slot in our certification school is very tough, and if
12:49
you get that slot, you got two week, you got a two week certification process, no days
12:54
off, huge on sleep deprivation, lots of scenarios, lots of training, drinking from a fire hydrant,
13:04
and it'll, it breaks a lot of people, I've seen, I got certified in 2002 as a FBI undercover,
13:12
I started probably role playing at the school in 2003, and I only missed a handful of schools
13:18
for the rest of my career, and I had never seen a hundred percent graduation rate, and
13:23
it's not hazing, it's not nothing like that, it's just that some people, you can be the
13:27
best case agent in the world, but maybe you're not cut out for undercover, you can be the
13:31
best SWAT operator in the world.
13:33
I've had friends that I was on SWAT with that were squared away dudes, and I've seen
13:38
them in action, and everything's cool, and then they go to an undercover school to try
13:42
to get certified, and after about three or four days with no sleep, they look like they've
13:46
been molested by a tribe, you know what I mean, they come walking in, their hairs disheveled,
13:51
buttons don't match on their shirt, zippers undone, you're like, man, are you okay?
13:55
And some people just can't take that normal, that like if I'm working regular hours this
14:01
week, my regimen is going to be the same, but most likely, right, I'm going to get up
14:05
about the same time every day, work out about the same time every day, eat about the same
14:08
time every day, but can you take that, flip it sideways upside down and not get your square
14:13
meals, miss your workouts for several days, if not weeks, and it not screw you up mentally
14:18
and have an adverse impact on your psyche?
14:20
Now, to your other question, the undercover here, I just got through teaching to Monday,
14:27
I was in San Destin, Florida, teaching at a gang in Narcotics Conference, and I'll ask,
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hey, what do you think undercover is?
14:35
What's undercover to you?
14:36
You walk around and people are like, oh, it's acting, or as soon as I go, you're lying,
14:39
or you pretend to be something you're not, you know, you're taking on a person, a persona
14:45
so you can infiltrate a group and get information, that's all pretty good, but in the undercover
14:49
world, we build and betray, and it sucks if you look at it that way, but we are building
14:55
relationships that if you're doing criminal activity and we're gathering evidence of it,
15:00
we're going to be betraying that friendship.
15:03
One of the most interesting things about the book, again, the book is codename "Pale Horse,
15:07
Fantastic Book," guys, it's in the show notes, you should definitely check it out, it is out
15:10
now if you're listening to this on time, is you built such good relationships doing your
15:15
undercover work that even after you busted people, they'd be like, hey, man, I know you're
15:19
just doing your job, still love you, bro, like that was one of the parts of the book,
15:22
I was like shocked, like these people are going to federal prison, and they're like,
15:26
ah, but I can't hold against Scott, Scott's my boy, and so that's kind of an ode to kind
15:30
of what you do, but I guess once guys get into the undercover thing, so they pass, they
15:36
get through the program, they are undercover, what are some of the mistakes, what are some
15:42
of the mistakes that agents make when they're working undercover that can maybe bounce them
15:45
out of the program or just, I guess, how risky does it actually get?
15:51
Because again, this over, you know, dramatized TV culture, we're always thinking the undercover
15:57
guy is literally basically about to get shot in every scene, like, oh my gosh, he accidentally
16:02
said his real name, and he couldn't really get out of it, and so like those are the things
16:06
that we think guys do is like they kind of mess up themselves, or maybe they speak too
16:11
much, or they kind of go over the top, but what are some of those mistakes that those
16:14
guys make?
16:15
Well, there's a decent amount, I mean, I made plenty of mistakes, I mean, there's actually
16:20
policy in the FBI undercover operations manual that I had a lot to do with because it wasn't
16:27
a policy, and when they were like, hey, what are the rules on that?
16:30
I'm like, well, there aren't any, and then they revamp the orders, the policy guide,
16:37
and it says, you know, under subsection adverse impacts or whatever adverse events.
16:43
But some of the things like even at the school, some of the ones that I remember specifically
16:50
are, if you can't tell the situation's deteriorating, I mean, we've had some unbelievable former
16:58
special forces, whatever, you're trying to get in the undercover program, but just say
17:04
for instance, if they've been overseas, and they've seen some horrific stuff, and put
17:11
bodies back together, or seen just, I mean, you know, people belong to bits, they're so
17:16
desensitized, sometimes, that when they're doing a scenario at an undercover school, and
17:22
your source has died, you've done dope, you've done, I mean, this is all hypothetical in a
17:26
scenario, but they don't, they're still in it, because they don't realize, hey, there's
17:31
no case worth this, you got to get out, or, you know, you just can't see that you're doing
17:36
things that things around you are getting bad, I had some instances like that that happened
17:41
to me, and the situation was definitely deteriorating, and in my mind, you know, you're playing
17:46
chess, you're trying to be four or five moves ahead of the target, or whoever you're dealing
17:51
with, and I fell behind in the moves on that one, because I ended up in a tight spot, but
17:55
I don't know, it's, you see the situation deteriorating, but as soon as I passed this
18:03
test, they were trying to give me everything went, it was fine, it was like, you got to
18:08
pay attention to that, and I articulated that, I'm like, look, yeah, it was bad, but then
18:12
as soon as I faked this test, it was like, all right, hey man, everything's cool, come
18:17
on in the back, here's all the dope, my brother's a cop, blah, blah, blah, and you're doing
18:20
all this stuff, you can make a lot of, I mean, generally speaking, just coming from the narcotics
18:27
world, even back in the mid 90s when I was a vice narcotics investigator at the sheriff's
18:33
office, I mean, you got that black cloud over you, you got dope, you got money, and you
18:37
got women, or whatever the vice may be, it could be the opposite way, but that's generally
18:42
that black cloud, and you see people sadly make mistakes, but in the undercover world,
18:50
I mean, but let me say this, if you were pretending to be something that you are not, like this
18:57
really different than what you are for a long period of time, like deep cover, generally
19:02
one or two things is going to happen, you're either going to slip up because it's not really
19:06
you, and then you might be getting caught by the bad guys, or you're going to become
19:11
it, and neither one of them are good.
19:14
So, but to your question on like danger, and yeah, it's there, it depends on who you work,
19:20
I mean, it depends on your case, but what I, the way I was taught and what I've learned
19:26
through my 28 years in law enforcement, and then I'm still doing stuff with them, even
19:31
retired, but trying to think what you said, what was it you asked me there at the end?
19:41
Well, basically it's the mistakes that people make, but what some agents do, that's, I guess
19:48
how risky is it for certain people in certain situations, maybe because here in the book,
19:54
you talk about two critical skills of keeping undercover work legal, okay, the first thing
19:59
is like, okay, you can't entrap anybody, or I guess that was the second thing is don't
20:04
entrap anybody, right?
20:05
Because if you infiltrate, or if you initiate a criminal plot, that's entrapment, but also
20:10
never be violent unless it's self-defense.
20:12
And I just think of a real life scenario where it's like, hey, you better, you better
20:18
be violent towards this person, or you better hurt this person, or we're going to hurt
20:21
you.
20:22
And in that moment, it's like, what in the world do you do?
20:24
And it's like, how realistic and how often are guys really being caught in situations
20:27
like that where it's like, well, even like you, it's like, hey, you're going to do this
20:31
drug, or I'm going to shoot you, you know, those types of things.
20:36
Yeah, thanks for getting me back on track.
20:40
I'm on my first cup of coffee.
20:41
Oh, it's all good, man.
20:43
We got plenty of time.
20:44
I know, right.
20:46
There's always a propensity for violence.
20:49
It doesn't matter really what you work, so you never want to get lax anyway in law enforcement,
20:54
but let's just say my skill set led me to backwoods with toothless meth heads, drug
21:01
addicts, violent biker gangs, white supremacy groups.
21:06
But I've got plenty of peers and mentors and people I've been blessed a mentor that maybe
21:11
their skill set is some huge white collar case.
21:14
Maybe it's a Wall Street fraud type thing, or maybe they're doing art crime, and they're
21:18
not necessarily going to into the woods with a bunch of armed crazed people, but they might
21:24
be doing a cheese and wine thing, but there's still a propensity for violence.
21:29
If somebody's going to go to jail, I mean, generally, a lot of times you're more worried
21:37
about the white collar person than the gang banger who's used to the system.
21:40
They may fight a lot, but once the cups are on, it's like, all right, all right, man, you
21:43
know, they know it's just like the game, but say it's the person the bank manager or something
21:51
that's been bezeling.
21:52
When that first cuff goes on, they're like, oh, man, this is real.
21:55
I'm not going to do good in prison or a pedophile.
21:58
You know, you got crimes against children people, and that's a huge sickness in itself,
22:04
but they don't do well in prison.
22:07
So, you know, there's always a propensity for violence, and so it doesn't matter for
22:11
me, if you're asking me the question, it doesn't matter whether it's a white collar crime,
22:15
whether it's a hardcore drug, gang, it's always a propensity for violence.
22:22
When I think it's interesting, one thing you were saying on an earlier question is it seems
22:26
like guys are grasping too much onto the case that they can't just let it go.
22:31
I watched, I re-watched Heat here recently, one of the best movies ever.
22:36
And as a crime movie, the main character, De Niro, one of the main characters, he basically
22:40
talks about you've got to be able to walk away from any situation in 30 seconds flat.
22:44
That's walk away from people, walk away from situations.
22:47
You've got to be able to let go so you technically hold everything loosely, and it seems like
22:51
the agents that really get in trouble are the ones that hold on tightly with both hands.
22:55
And I guess another thing that you mentioned there that's interesting that I wanted to
22:58
ask you about is switching.
23:01
Whether you're in deep cover or just doing undercover, it's switching back and forth,
23:05
because all the while while you're doing this undercover stuff, and guys, we haven't even
23:08
got into the undercover stuff that you were doing, and don't worry, we're going to get
23:11
there.
23:12
You're married.
23:13
You've got kids.
23:14
And there's one misconception that you're living that second life, like you're gone for
23:20
years at a time, living this double life or something like that.
23:23
That's not exactly the case.
23:25
But how hard is it when that line between Scott Payne and whatever the name is that you've
23:32
taken on and whatever group that you're infiltrating, how hard is it to switch back and forth and
23:36
realize like, no, I'm not becoming this bad person.
23:39
I'm just basically playing a role so that I can build and betray.
23:43
Very good question.
23:44
I think in the beginning, it was a lot harder.
23:47
But as the years went on, especially towards the end of my career, you just know, but maybe
23:52
the best way for me to answer is this.
23:55
For me, the way I was taught and the way I did it is I was never far from what I really
24:00
am who I really am.
24:02
I mean, I'm still the Jovial country guy, I'm a, you know, boisterous, big splash, whatever.
24:09
I may or may not have kids, I may or may not be married, I may or may not play college
24:13
ball, may or may not be a musician, but you can pretty much bet I lift weights and I'll
24:17
probably ride motorcycles.
24:20
But for me, I mean, I pull from within, right?
24:26
So if I'm with a violent biker gang, I mean, for the most part, I had a good time.
24:32
Because it was just like being back on the football team, you know, and just cracking
24:37
skulls and doing whatever, a bunch of dumb testosterone stuff.
24:40
But one of the main things I would do is I got to, I always have my necklace and I got
24:48
my cross, right?
24:49
But when I would go get ready to go undercover, the cross comes off and I had a skull and
24:54
I put the skull on and that, I don't know, or maybe that's me putting on my Superman
24:58
cape or whatever, but you just start making that transition because literally, and things
25:03
are getting tougher these days, weight tougher with like facial recognition and all this
25:07
stuff.
25:08
But in my heyday, once I got out of my vehicle at the airport of wherever I was living, I'm
25:15
Scott Calloway now, or I'm Scott Anderson now, or I'm Scott Williams and there's nothing
25:19
on me that says anything different.
25:22
And you know, you're social, you know, your date of birth, you know, where high school
25:25
you went to, you got to know it all because you've got to look, you have to look as real
25:29
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26:02
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26:34
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27:02
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27:05
I mean, that's obviously your life is on the line because as you described, no matter
27:09
if it's white collar, blue collar, crazy people in the woods, you know, drinking goat blood.
27:12
Don't worry, guys.
27:13
We'll get there.
27:14
There's always that.
27:15
You know, there's danger around every corner.
27:16
And if you if you slip up, you could get got one question before we start getting
27:20
into the actual undercover work.
27:23
You worked with the actual real life Donny Brasko, right?
27:27
And so like, you know, that's second movie reference, but that's technically a real thing
27:30
and a real person that actually happened.
27:32
But it was just so interesting as you're talking about the real world guy, you know,
27:37
the alter ego was Donny Brasko, but he was still at the bureau after, you know, he had
27:42
basically gone world famous for being this person that infiltrated the mob and different
27:46
things like that.
27:47
So for you, what was it like getting into the world?
27:50
Okay, you're a fed now.
27:51
Okay.
27:52
Now you're an undercover guy.
27:53
Oh, shoot.
27:54
We're learning from the guy.
27:55
Like the, the, I guess you could call him the most famous of guys that have done this
27:58
line of work, but here he is teaching you the ins and outs of doing this job so that you
28:03
could do well in your chosen field or wherever you're sent to.
28:08
I would be like an unhealthy kid in a candy store.
28:11
That's right.
28:12
Yeah.
28:13
That actually is on the front row, that's not my choice again, that the undercover school
28:18
is 20 slots.
28:19
So you got four groups of five.
28:22
And my group, we were on the front row and here I am, a guy who's infatuated with undercover.
28:32
I already have the bug because I did undercover work, not like super deep, but you know, bind
28:38
up and do and buy stuff at the sheriff's office.
28:43
And now I'm the middle seat of the front row.
28:46
And I've got Donnie Braska, I got Joe Pastone talking to me and he's still a friend of this
28:49
day.
28:50
I mean, he's a mentor for, I mean, but he, he graciously did a blurb on the book as well.
28:58
He is a anytime he comes around, I think I saw him within the last year I saw him because
29:02
he was in town speaking at a, at a conference and he hit me up, you know, my nickname was
29:06
Big Country and he's like, hey country, I'm coming to, you know, Tennessee and I'm like,
29:11
I'm on my way, you know, drop what you're doing.
29:14
But yeah, but Joe is probably the most famous, but there are so many that you don't know.
29:21
That's a very good lead for me to say this, because there's going to be haters and there's
29:26
going to be people out there that like, oh, you just like to talk about yourself and okay,
29:30
that's fine.
29:31
That's not the truth, but that's okay.
29:36
There are men and women out there that have done way more than me that have done, been
29:41
in more harrowing situations than me and I don't want anybody to have to go through
29:46
anything harrowing or something scary, but if we're on the front line and we're still
29:50
doing undercover, it's probably going to happen, but you got Joe Pastone, but then you meet
29:55
these other people and then you get involved deeply in the program and you've got, you've
29:59
got this cadre and I've been a part of a lot of units, you know, SWAT teams, narcotics
30:04
units, whatever it may be, the undercover program during, again, like that 15 to 20
30:09
year period that in the FBI, that was the most diverse group of people I've ever been
30:15
a part of.
30:16
Well, the interesting thing is I've had the wonderful privilege of being around a lot
30:21
of people from the spec ops community.
30:23
So these could be Navy SEALs or Marine Recon or SF or these different guys.
30:27
And so they're the guys that have the big followings on Instagram and I like those guys
30:30
and I'm friends with those guys, but then when you're just hanging out, you know, having
30:34
a scotch and a cigar and all that.
30:35
And then you start hearing stories about guys and they'll only refer to them by their code
30:39
name and like, because they'll be like, yeah, you know, I got a bunch of followers on Instagram,
30:43
but this dude was the man, but he's, you know, quite professional.
30:48
He doesn't want to be acknowledged for anything.
30:49
And then you start hearing about, okay, well, the public thinks that this guy killed that
30:53
guy, but actually it was this guy and he just didn't want any, you know, he didn't want
30:57
any play.
30:58
And so he's like, yeah, let's just say the other guy killed him.
31:00
It's just an interesting group of people.
31:01
All right.
31:02
We made it up.
31:03
Yeah, we made all the way here, Scott.
31:04
We need to start talking about some of your undercover stuff that you actually did.
31:07
And I've spent a lot of time watching gangland shows.
31:11
Okay.
31:12
And so that's actually helped me quite a bit.
31:13
So you and I are talking a little bit because I've watched all these biker gang shows and
31:17
I don't mean like sons of anarchy.
31:19
I mean, like documentaries, you know, about these different groups and these different
31:21
gangs.
31:22
Like I recognize tattoos on people.
31:24
Like I had this interaction with a guy in New Mexico at a gas pump, you know, make the
31:28
long story short.
31:29
The moment he started talking to me, I knew that he was clicked up, that he had been
31:33
as in prison.
31:34
And I was pretty sure what he was in prison for.
31:37
And throughout our conversation, as I was sharing the gospel with him, yep.
31:41
He was clicked up.
31:42
I had the right click.
31:43
He wasn't prison and he wasn't prison for what I thought he was in prison for.
31:45
And he had just gotten out just because I had watched these shows.
31:49
And so guys, you know, you think, Hey, this is just my hobby, but you should always be
31:52
thinking how my hobby could turn into a gospel related conversation where you're actually
31:56
making, you know, you're making common ground with somebody like that.
32:00
But one of the first things that you got into is you were put on to biker gangs.
32:04
And there are things where people will see patches on guys, cuts or things like that
32:09
that say 1% or they don't exactly know what that means.
32:12
But let's talk a little bit about biker gangs.
32:15
You get kind of getting into that world 1% and then how you were turned on to trying
32:20
to infiltrate outlaw motorcycle club.
32:22
Sure, I kind of was a biker, I mean, that's my old, my old narcotics squad.
32:27
I mean, if you saw a picture of us, we all, we looked like we were a biker gang pretty
32:31
much.
32:32
I mean, we all rode Harley's and we'd go to Myrtle Beach Bike Week every year or twice
32:35
a year usually.
32:36
But, and where I was at, South Carolina was a hell's angel state and it still is.
32:42
But so when I bounced in, I bounced in, I bounced in, I'm not proud of it, I bounced
32:49
in gentleman's clubs, which in the book I say is an oxymoron because anytime I've ever
32:55
been in those places, there's not a single gentleman in there.
32:59
But when I was doing that, the hell's angels came there a lot.
33:02
So I was getting all kinds of exposure like that.
33:06
And then for the people or listeners that don't know the biker world, there's, you know,
33:11
you've got what you've already said, the cut, the colors that's their vest, you'll have
33:16
a top rocker, it'll say like, you know, outlaws MC and then they'll be their patch, which
33:22
usually has a nickname or whatever and then you've got a bottom rocker, which might be
33:24
like the state, Massachusetts.
33:27
And then if you see the 1%er, that goes way back to when, you know, all these motorcycle
33:32
gangs were being formed from guys coming back from war and it was a rowdy, raucous bunch
33:38
in the owner, or I guess the lead guy of the American Motorcycle Association, I think
33:45
that's what it was back then, came out with a statement and it says something to the effect
33:49
of look, 99% of all motorcycle riders are good law abiding citizens.
33:55
It's only 1% of their bad and they took that as a badge of honor, smack that on their chest
34:00
and their 1%ers.
34:01
They also have a mandatory, most clubs have a mandatory meeting every week and they refer
34:07
to that as church.
34:09
So when we start talking about the outlaws, and I say we were going to church, I don't
34:13
mean church, church, I mean like, you know, the weekly meeting.
34:17
So the way it happened for me is I get certified, I'm doing undercovers, but I'm going back
34:25
and role playing at the school, so I'm starting to get noticed by some people that are longer
34:30
in the tooth and undercover and very involved in the program.
34:34
And they might see me and I guess, I don't know, I was blessed that they thought I had
34:39
something and they would say, "Hey man, we got this case coming up, what do you think?
34:43
Would you be interested in it?"
34:45
And I ended up going up to Boston, Massachusetts to be interviewed for the outlaws case.
34:53
And eventually, I guess, I don't know how many they interviewed or whatever, but I got
34:56
picked and then the game starts.
34:58
Now, it's how do we approach, how do I get in, what's the redneck doing in Massachusetts
35:05
kind of thing, you know, and then that's how the case agent, the case team have been working
35:11
the outlaws, I think on that case for at least a year.
35:14
And now they've gotten to the point to where, hey, they've got all this intelligence, they've
35:18
got some crimes, but they know there's more there and they're at the point where they
35:22
can try to insert an undercover and then that ended up being me.
35:25
So insert an undercover, but let's really get into the granular level of how do you even
35:30
get started because obviously you don't just walk up to one of their church services and
35:34
be like, hey, I'm a guy, I ride bicycles with motors on them.
35:37
Do you all want to hang out with me?
35:39
Like those things don't happen.
35:40
And so I'm sure there is kind of trade craft that you can't share about how you would insert
35:44
into a situation like that.
35:46
But I mean, infiltration doesn't happen without an introduction.
35:49
So how in the world do you get introduced?
35:52
There are many different ways and there is some trade craft I won't talk about.
35:56
But for me in this case, I decided with the team, the case team that it would be best.
36:03
I felt most comfortable if I went in and what we call like a cold bump.
36:08
Like I'm bumping into you, I've never met you.
36:11
I'm not being introduced to you.
36:14
And what I did for that particular case is I was just being me, loud mouth, country guy
36:21
at a Northeast bar strip club, because we knew that's where they frequented.
36:28
One of the clubs that they frequented in Brockton, Massachusetts.
36:32
So I went in there a couple of times along, kind of got the lay of the land.
36:36
And then I was in there one night when we decided, hey, tonight it's going to be our
36:40
first try and they were leaving church at their clubhouse.
36:47
And they all came to this place called the Foxy Lady.
36:50
And I was in there and I'm just being me.
36:54
But I've already got a group of people around telling jokes, laugh, and we're drinking.
36:59
And there was one, I mean, you're attracting attention, right?
37:03
And all these outlaws are on this other side of the bar and got the back corner.
37:08
And one of them, he was like, hey, man, where are you from and this side and the other?
37:13
And then we start talking and eventually, you know, it's just ingratiating, gaining trust,
37:18
building those relationships and their friendship.
37:22
And maybe you find out they're doing something illegal.
37:25
Maybe you don't.
37:26
You know, I've done several under, I mean, a lot of under covers where you're in there
37:31
for five months and there's nothing criminally being done and it's just time to pull chocks.
37:35
Yeah.
37:36
And so with that in mind again, guys, I don't want to spoil any of the amazing stories that
37:40
come from the book.
37:41
Again, it's codename pale horse.
37:42
You got to go check it out.
37:44
But you know, we've been talking for like 30 minutes.
37:46
We're basically best friends now.
37:48
I want a story from the outlaw motorcycle club time period that you didn't tell in the
37:53
book.
37:54
I want to know a good one.
37:55
Super juicy.
37:56
It could just be interesting or funny because again, guys, no spoiler alert here.
38:01
Your work that you did brought down a lot of the guys that were were in that club.
38:05
You talk about it in the book, but give me something.
38:07
Give me something good.
38:08
Give me something.
38:09
Come on.
38:10
See, that's, that's a great thing, but I'm so diagram transparent.
38:12
I think I put everything in the book.
38:14
I'm trying to.
38:15
Everything.
38:16
There's not like one like kind of funny story or kind of interesting thing that you didn't
38:20
expect.
38:21
It's got to be something.
38:22
But man, I think I, I think I put it in there.
38:25
Okay.
38:26
Tell, how about you just give us a story from the book without spoiling anything because
38:28
obviously, you know, you get into the detail.
38:30
Yeah, we can talk about, um, well, the one of the scariest things that ever happened
38:36
to me happened on that case.
38:38
Let's go.
38:39
I, uh, and this will be, this will, this will be good for this specific, I can't talk specifically
38:45
this podcast in your listener group because we're faith based, right?
38:49
Um, I had been undercover for a year and a half of these guys and I, we were doing all
38:55
kinds of criminal activity because they had learned that what they believed is that I
38:59
was a high ranking member of an international theft ring.
39:02
I was based out of south Texas deep south Texas on the border and I was moving stolen
39:06
stuff to the cartel, which really happened all the time.
39:10
Um, so they started reporting vehicle stolen and then they would sell them to me at a stolen
39:17
price, they get their insurance money, all kind of light stuff, but I'm gaining trust
39:22
and you know, in the criminal world, greed generally wins all the time.
39:29
Everybody's favorite color is green, you know, they want money.
39:32
Um, and so for a year and a half, we've been getting in all kinds of, uh, uh, evidence
39:40
of criminal activity, whether it be stolen vehicles, because then they eventually just
39:43
started stealing them right off the line out of people, you know, carjackings where they've
39:47
taken somebody at gunpoint and they're getting me to get rid of the vehicle.
39:51
Um, there were murders that were happening and they were, I mean, all kinds of stuff
39:55
was going on, but we're at a year and a half point and I'm, I mean, I've got really good
40:00
relationships and if you look at Scott Calloway, but if you look at who my closest friendships
40:08
were, uh, there was a guy named Scott town, uh, we were the tightest, um, scary how tight
40:15
we were, scary how much we had in common.
40:17
Um, and then the second probably tightest relationship would have been a guy that went
40:21
by this street named clothesline and he was an enforcer for the outlaws.
40:26
So let's get to that point.
40:27
It's now a year and a half in and the case team, uh, FBI decided we wanted to try to do,
40:34
uh, a drug protection because they had been, I mean, when I met the president of the Taunton
40:39
chapter, Joe Dawgs, as soon as I said, I was in McCallen, Texas.
40:42
The first thing out of his mouth was how much can you get a kilo of cocaine for down
40:46
there?
40:47
I'm like, well, I'm like, if anybody was wondering and we needed predication, we now have it.
40:53
Um, so now I've let it trickle out after a year and a half.
40:57
Hey, I did used to be involved in the dope game.
40:59
We've got cartels trying to move dope into Canada, um, and, and they were always, especially
41:05
Joe Dawgs was looking, amen, they're always looking for a lower price for the drug and
41:12
a higher purity of the drug.
41:14
Um, and it was a good chance for them to meet and get a good pipe, get a connection to a
41:19
strong pipeline of narcotics.
41:22
So here we are a year and a half.
41:23
The assistant United States attorney, which is the person assigned, uh, from the US attorney's
41:28
office on the case, they're working the case and he said, Hey man, do you, because we're
41:33
preparing to do this drug protection and he's like, are they talking about that in the club
41:37
house?
41:38
Uh, and I'm like, yeah.
41:39
All the time.
41:40
I was like, well, uh, it would be great if we could get that on a recording in the club
41:45
house.
41:46
Cause it helps with asset form, but you're in search warrants and stuff like that.
41:48
And of course I said, yeah, I'll do it.
41:50
Cause that's what we're doing.
41:51
You're on the front line and you're going in there and you're getting the evidence.
41:53
And again, a year and a half, I don't want to say I got a lax, but Joe Dawgs says, Hey,
42:01
come over here.
42:02
Meet us at the clubhouse.
42:03
This is the night before we're supposed to do the deal.
42:04
Uh, I get there.
42:06
They're still having church.
42:07
I'm knocking on the door, knocking on the door, Joe Dawgs finally peeks, cracks the door
42:11
and peeks through.
42:12
It's like, Hey, uh, we're not ready yet.
42:13
And I was kind of a smart elegant, like, well, then why don't you tell me to come over
42:15
here?
42:16
So he sends me with another guy to go get something to eat.
42:18
We come back.
42:19
What I didn't know, uh, and what we found out later is that that the outlaws in Massachusetts
42:27
there, uh, clearly somebody had to send it up the chain because it came down from the
42:31
top, which, uh, the national president at that time was a guy, went by Milwaukee Jack.
42:38
And they said, Hey, is this guy talking about me really been checked out?
42:42
And the response was we found out, Hey, we've done like eight plus jobs with this guy and
42:46
we're not in bracelets, meaning handcuffs.
42:48
Um, and they said it doesn't matter.
42:50
We want you to check.
42:52
So we, we didn't know it.
42:54
I didn't know it, but we found out what their kind of MO was for checking people out that
42:58
night.
42:59
I go in and granted I'm wired to the hill.
43:02
I have a video audio recording device.
43:04
I have an audio recording device.
43:06
I've got a transmitter and I go into the clubhouse and I'm cracking jokes like normal.
43:11
So for the listeners that don't know, at least at this chapter, the way it worked was if you're
43:15
not a patch member, you can't touch the door and the door of that clubhouse had a metal
43:20
bar, welded hooks, whatever they, big steel bar across it, still frame, bed bolts, heavily
43:26
fortified door, um, you can't touch the phone, but I could drink for free cause they respected
43:31
me and, and they liked me.
43:33
Um, so we're there and it comes to the point to where clothes line comes up to me and he
43:39
says, Hey, tech, they call me text.
43:41
That was my road name because I was from Texas and they, you know, you can't pick your nickname.
43:44
They pick it for you.
43:45
So he's like, Hey, text, you got a minute and I'm like, yeah, I'm supposed to be my boy
43:50
and he texted me to this one door that I'd never been in the clubhouse.
43:53
Uh, I've been in that clubhouse probably 20 plus times.
43:56
I, I've never been in this door that no, or even went opens the door as I, as he's walking
44:01
in from me, another outlaw comes in behind me, which of course, your spotty senses or
44:06
your, the Holy Spirit should be telling you, Hey, this is not good.
44:10
So we walked down into this very tight, dark stairwell, uh, you could call it a basement.
44:17
I'm more like a seller.
44:19
I mean, it's, it's a Northeastern home.
44:20
Uh, I couldn't even stay, I'm six, four, but I couldn't stand up straight.
44:24
Uh, it was that tight and he probably touched the wall on both sides.
44:28
So now you're starting to get that old crap moment.
44:31
And I did look for plastic that I saw a rope.
44:33
They had already brandished their weapons.
44:35
They're showing me they got guns, basically telling me you're not free to go.
44:38
Uh, the one outlaw that came in behind me is standing on the steps to keep me from leaving.
44:43
Um, and he strips us me, he tells me to write down my full name, my date of birth, phone
44:50
number, wife and kids.
44:52
And I actually said, I'm not going to tell you to write your kids names down.
44:55
He said, not like we couldn't find out who they are.
44:57
Um, and, uh, they start checking me for a wire.
45:02
Um, but because of that adrenaline dump and that old crap moment, uh, if anybody's ever
45:08
had it, like, if you've ever been in a car wreck, things just slow down.
45:11
Right?
45:12
So it feels like it's 10 minutes and not only been 30 seconds, you know, or minutes seem
45:16
like hours.
45:18
You get auditory exclusion, everything's going, whoosh, whoosh, real slow, time dilation,
45:23
your eyes are clicking like frames.
45:25
You're like, Oh, you can, you can feel your heartbeat, your hamstrings get rubbery, all
45:29
that stuff.
45:30
I forgot my middle name.
45:32
I'm trying to write down my name.
45:34
And as I told you earlier, I know who it is.
45:36
It's me.
45:37
I created the thing, but because of the, the stress, uh, and me knowing what could potentially
45:44
get ready to happen, um, I forgot my middle name.
45:48
And then I, you know, I'm going through the roller decks in my head.
45:51
I'm, I'm doing distraction techniques, keeping talking to them, trying to figure out what's
45:55
going on.
45:56
And, uh, I basically, I took off my jacket.
46:00
I took off how many layers of shirts I had on, I don't know, it was cold.
46:04
Uh, I took my boots off and then I pulled my pants and underwear down around my ankles.
46:10
So I'm standing there naked pretty much.
46:12
Uh, and they check me out and he doesn't find anything.
46:18
And again, I'm telling this a little fast, but I'm, I'm crapping my pants at this point.
46:23
I joke about it, but I was scared.
46:26
I mean, I didn't know.
46:27
I mean, if they, if they found it, would they beat me up?
46:29
Would they kill me?
46:30
I don't know.
46:31
Again, I don't see plastic on the floor.
46:33
Um, so I think I'm done and we kind of laugh a little bit and then he grabs a piece of
46:40
clothing that I'd taken off and without giving away where it's stuff was at, but I, and that
46:45
piece of clothing was a recording device and I'm watching him just work his fingers over
46:51
it and need it, you know, and, and I don't, again, I don't even know how to do it, but
46:55
if you hear the recording or watch the video, there's an audible sigh for me as I'm watching
46:59
this dude, uh, go through my clothing and you hear me just go, uh, cause I'm like doing
47:08
it out loud. I don't even know. And he kind of looks right at it and doesn't find it.
47:15
And I've been teaching that stuff since like 2008, um, and people always ask, man, what
47:21
would you have done or what would you have said if he found it?
47:25
So when he grabbed that piece of clothing, the first thing he said was cause he was kind
47:28
of lightening up to this is supposed to be my boy clothesline.
47:32
He's kind of like, Oh, he's like, Hey, I'm not going to find anything in here.
47:35
And I don't want to write like some naked pictures of my old lady and we kind of giggle.
47:39
So my first response, if he would have said, what is this? I would have probably said,
47:44
I don't know if some naked pictures of your old lady just to try to buy some time. Um,
47:48
but the only other thing I had to say, Kyle was, and I remember it like it was yesterday,
47:53
I would have said the gig is up. I'm an undercover FBI agent and I can walk out of here and we
47:59
can see each other in court or all hell is going to break loose. Um, but the issue with
48:03
that would have been on my part. It would have been a bluff. And the reason is, is because
48:09
to my knowledge, my cover team could never really hear me inside that clubhouse. Um,
48:15
because, you know, I mean, again, we're talking like 2006 to eight somewhere in there, clearly
48:21
technology is way better now than it was then. Um, but they couldn't hear me. So to me, that
48:28
would have been a bluff. So I'll make it out of there. This very scary moment. I'm on a
48:33
complete adrenaline high. Um, and then let's just fast forward to the end of the evening,
48:39
which could have been four or five in the morning. Who knows? And I'm meeting the case
48:43
team to pass off at an undisclosed location to pass off my recording equipment. And what
48:48
I find out is the two guys that were part of the case team, uh, Sergeant Higginbottom,
48:54
which everybody called Higgie from Massachusetts State Troopers and Detective Joe Cummings from
48:59
Brockton PD were first on shift and something in that original, uh, interaction with Joe
49:06
dogs, they picked up. They're like, something's not right. And they had actually pulled close
49:11
enough and they heard everything. So here's two senior, very skilled, uh, investigators.
49:18
Luckily, they've gotten to know my baseline. But again, if I played the recording for you,
49:24
you're going to hear my voice is a heck of a lot higher than it is right now. You're
49:27
going to hear that my throat's tight. I'm even talking through my nose because I'm panicking.
49:32
And, um, they had listened to all that and they had suited up, bested up, and they had
49:39
been in that clubhouse before and they kind of knew that the door was heavily fortified.
49:43
Their plan was to drive the minivan they were in into the cinder block wall next to the
49:47
door. In other words, easier to breach the wall around the door than the door. Um, it
49:54
was a plan, right? And I, and what I found out is they heard everything. They had radioed
49:59
back to Boston, said, Hey, they got Scott in the basement. They're stripping him. And
50:02
of course I'm wired to the hill. So everybody else from Boston that's working that night
50:06
is coming blue lights and siren down the highway. And, uh, and, uh, I say this is kind
50:13
of comical, but it's, uh, it's just my sense of humor. But my buddy, who was the case agent,
50:18
Tim Quinn, he told me he's like, uh, he's like, man, when I was coming down that highway,
50:22
it was blue lights and sirens. He goes, I felt like I was in there with you and I looked
50:27
at him and I said, I looked at him and I went, you weren't you weren't man. I was looking
50:33
for any friendly face that I could find in that, that gum dark. Oh, but here's, here's
50:39
one for the faith base. Right. Yeah. At that time, I went a newlywed, but we were young
50:45
in our marriage. Me and my wife, we had two daughters. Uh, my youngest daughter maybe
50:50
been like one at that time. I don't know. So it's common now, everybody knows usually
50:56
what a burner phone is, but in other words, you go buy a phone, you pay by the minute.
50:59
It has nothing attached to it. So I bought one so that my wife would have a phone that
51:04
I could call her for my undercover phone. Oh, right. Cause I, it's operational security.
51:09
You don't want your, you don't want any of your undercover stuff contacting anything while
51:13
enforcement or real life stuff. Um, so every night, no matter what time it was five in
51:19
the morning, seven in the morning, I would call her and say, Hey, I'm done. I'm on my
51:23
way back to the hotel. I'm just going to go to sleep. I'll call you when I, when I get
51:26
up. Sometimes we talk for a little bit. Most of the time is like, I love you. I'll talk
51:31
to you later by that night. Kyle, when I called her, um, the first thing she said was, is
51:36
are you okay? And I said, yeah, why? And she said, I don't know. She said, honey, I,
51:43
it's such and such time this night. I was driving around with the girls in McAllen, Texas and
51:48
she got, she said, I got this overwhelming feeling and I pulled over on the side of the
51:53
road and started praying. She started praying for me and I mashed it up and it's, it, when
51:58
she got that feeling and she pulled over to pray for me, I was in the basement getting
52:02
stripped at gunpoint. Scott, the number, well, first of all, as I was reading in the book,
52:07
my palms got sweaty in here and you retell it right now. My palms have gotten a little
52:11
bit clammy and sweaty as well. Like the, but the number of times I've heard stories like
52:15
that where someone in the middle of the night wakes up and they, they just immediately get
52:20
this overwhelming sense. I need to pray for somebody and like they're absolutely in it
52:23
in those moments. It's absolutely incredible. I do want to kind of go a little bit deeper
52:28
on the faith element because there are going to be, there is some confusion for people
52:32
that haven't really thought through this very much. It's like, wait, how can you be a Christian
52:35
in your entire job, be lying all day every day? But then you ask the same person, like
52:39
if you were a, you know, a German hiding Jews under your floorboards in your house, would
52:45
you tell the Nazi officer or the SS officer? Yes, I'm hiding Jews under the floor. Of
52:49
course you wouldn't because the, the, the ethic of protecting human life, image bearers
52:55
of God is above the, those other ethics in that moment, right? But again, you are betraying
53:02
people. You are doing things that are a biblical, things that are outside of the Bible. And
53:07
you're also trying to maintain faith and we don't have time to get into it. But I mean,
53:10
you crashed at one point, like you said, most people would just call it like burnout. You
53:14
absolutely burned completely out. You do talk about this faith based community that you
53:19
always had. You always had kind of this small group community. Again, guys, that's why it's
53:22
so important to cultivate those relationships because you got to make those deposits because
53:26
you never know when you're going to need to take some withdrawals. But how, how does somebody
53:30
seek Christ and, and, you know, commune with the, the God creator, the creator God of
53:36
the universe while doing this type of work, which doesn't just change your personality
53:41
and your clothing. It could, I mean, it almost feels like it can change you on a soul level.
53:45
You know what I mean? Definitely. I mean, think of, just think of the law enforcement
53:48
officers that work crimes against children and have to look at those pictures and videos.
53:52
I've talked to some of those guys and they're like, and I asked them, like, how long do
53:56
guys make it? And they're like, usually they make it about six months. And I was talking
53:59
to a guy that was in like year four or five. And it's just, I don't want to be dramatic
54:04
here or play, you know, play with this. But you look in their eyes and it's just like
54:07
something's missing. It's just like they've just been crushed all day long because her
54:11
job is to watch videos of men raping children so that they could get some sort of an intel
54:17
so that they can find the perpetrator. I mean, it's just absolutely stunning.
54:20
Yeah, it's, it's pretty sick. A couple of things. What you ask. First of all, if I was
54:29
a strict Southern Baptist straightforward walk of the chalk line, I wouldn't ever be able
54:38
to infiltrate these groups. There's no way. I mean, they would, first of all, I would
54:42
never even been in that bar, right? When I I love the fact that you said burnout, I should
54:48
have called it that actually. But I got to a point after a three year period of my life,
54:54
I did wait too much. I stopped taking care of myself and I met my threshold for that
54:59
time of the year that day, whatever that three year period, I met my threshold and I was burned
55:04
out. And I had panic attack. I was having all kinds of issues. I've gotten so stressed
55:14
that I didn't even realize I was only breathing in my chest. Like I rarely filled my stomach
55:18
up with air. All my breath was like right here, which is not good. But when I got humbled
55:26
and I got smacked down, I, you know, I believe and I will the story after story throughout
55:35
the Bible, you get put in some rough situations. The Lord puts you there to maybe make you come
55:41
closer to him, to maybe make you realize certain things. And I'll tell you what I wrestled
55:46
with. I started seeing a counselor, a Christian counselor. I kept the journal. I was trying
55:54
to figure out what it was. Again, I'm very transparent. And I was like, here's the truth.
55:59
Here's what I'm feeling. Am I crazy? Am I losing my mind? Am I having to take a nervous breakdown?
56:04
I want to know you guys have the tools in your box fix me or tell me what's wrong. But
56:10
I remember praying a lot. And I was really wrestling with the fact of how I was going
56:18
to get back to being me or kind of who I was and remain humble to God. And I was really
56:24
wrestling with it because I mean, I was beat down. I mean, I was, I was like beat down,
56:29
beat down. And it turned out I had some PTSD from something that happened earlier in my
56:33
life. And as most everybody does, right? But I just remember praying about it and wrestling
56:41
with it and wrestling with it and saying, man, I may never, I may never get back. You know,
56:46
and then one day while I was in conversation with the Lord, it hit me like a brick in the
56:51
face. And it was this, I would have never been able to do the things I had done. If he
56:58
didn't bless me with what he'd bless me with, I would have never even been there. I wouldn't
57:04
have the skills that I have. And I'm like, okay, now I'm starting to see a pitcher. He
57:09
put me here to glorify him to get closer to him. And I can get back to being a maybe
57:17
if undercover is in his plan for me, I'll be back doing more undercovers. I'll be back
57:23
being a great case agent, putting bad people in jail, SWAT tactics, you name it. And it
57:29
really, really helped me. But again, you mentioned small groups. And there, I can't tell you
57:33
when we were in McCallen, me and my wife were officially baptized as adults by our own choice,
57:40
right? And we had a great small group. We called them life groups down there. But man,
57:47
and even when I got to Tennessee, same thing, I've been in some things and it's just something
57:53
so powerful. And for non-believers, they're not going to get it, you know, but to sit
57:59
in a chair. And even it's this embarrassing at first, you're like, Oh, man, no, I'm playing
58:03
big league. I'm a tough guy. I don't need people to put their hands on me and pray for
58:08
me. That's bull. You need it. And to be sitting in a chair in the middle of a room and your
58:13
small group coming lay hands on you and pray over you. I'm telling you, Cal, when I get
58:18
up, I could do that. I mean, I'm telling my age, but I could do the old cool leg guy.
58:21
I'll run right through a wall. You know, well, I, I think you're, you're hitting on something
58:27
that a lot of guys again, we get this idea that the lone wolf thing is like the thing
58:31
we should be looking for, but it's like, Hey, uh, watching nature show, what happens to
58:36
lone wolves, they die alone. Like they, they get put out, even if they used to be the alpha,
58:42
they get put out of the pack and they die by themselves. They either get, you know, uh,
58:46
taken out by another animal or they starve to death or freeze to death. Okay. Does that
58:50
sound like fun? Does that sound like something that you need to do? But here's the other
58:53
things, Scott. You're talking about, you know, you know, all good things come from the Lord
58:58
and we see that they're out scripture, but I've been put on this planet to equipment to
59:01
push back darkness. Okay. So I have had to expose myself to some incredibly dark areas
59:08
of humanity so that I could help guys recognize darkness when they see it so that they can
59:14
push it back. You can't push back darkness just by randomly pushing your palms out, uh,
59:19
into ether, you have to have a specific thing that you are pushing back. And so what that
59:23
requires of some people is exposing themselves to those things. And you can't get through
59:29
that and keep your soul and maintain your faith unless God has equipped you to do that, right?
59:35
So I'm not saying that that people should do and expose themselves to the things that
59:38
I expose myself to, but I've been given a mandate, right? But if God gives you a mandate, he gives
59:43
you the ability to walk through that mandate, he will give you the strength. Like that's
59:47
the whole game. He's not going to give you a mandate and give you no ability to accomplish
59:51
it. Right. And so I think that's where a lot of guys miss it. And so speaking of darkness,
59:56
obviously kind of the crux of the entire book, because it is the subtitles, how I went undercover
1:00:00
to expose America's Nazis. Okay. So Nazis, neo Nazis, white supremacists, accelerationists,
1:00:06
that that's a really a through point of what we're seeing here. But I do have to read literally
1:00:12
the funniest quote of the entire book, because as I'm sitting here on the floor of my studio,
1:00:16
I do most of my prep reading books, I literally laughed out loud. Okay. So I got to read this quote
1:00:20
here. In the pitch black darkness, I walked back to my car to get my gear so I could finally start
1:00:26
playing because you're about to, you know, play guitar at this event. I went through what, what
1:00:30
had just happened, starting to worry about the bureaucracy and questions I may get asked. Did I
1:00:35
have the right approvals for that ceremony? What had just happened? Then it hit me. I think I just
1:00:41
joined the joined the damn clan. Yep. I just joined the clan. And so here you are having this
1:00:46
realization all at once as you're walking to your vehicle, holy crap, I just joined the KKK. And I
1:00:52
just start busting out laughing because like, you would think like, okay, you would know what
1:00:57
you just done. But we've all had that moment where we're like, wait a minute, wait a minute,
1:01:01
did I just do the thing that I absolutely clearly just did? Holy crap, I just did. But it's like
1:01:06
the end of the whip where it just doesn't hit you until the very, very end. Now you obviously
1:01:10
spend some time in the book speaking on the KKK. I do want to spend a little bit more time talking
1:01:14
about acceleration is, but you got to tell us about how you got into the KKK. I mean, come on,
1:01:19
Scott. Well, oddly enough, this section of the KKK had a hotline. I mean,
1:01:26
I know this was years ago, but it's like they literally had a 1 800 number. Hey, call this
1:01:34
not that long ago. Yeah, it's not that long ago. Yeah, you called and old John Jack answers the
1:01:40
phone. And it turns out John Jack ended up being the club, which is basically the chaplain
1:01:46
for the for the clan. They got their own Bible man, the Cloran. But it's if you're in the clan,
1:01:55
every, every phonetic sound that's a cup is now okay. It doesn't matter. You know, I would spell
1:02:02
my name Scott with SKOTT. You know, we there was a case team that was already investigating the
1:02:09
clan in Alabama. And I called the hotline and I'm talking to them. And, you know, I had a back
1:02:15
story that was believable. And I vetted it as you should. I mean, I don't need to bluff anything,
1:02:22
but long, long and short of it is I'm like, man, I'm an old biker. It was this rally. I don't know
1:02:27
about it. I've never been to one. You guys like, I was immune. I mean, is that like bars? Is there
1:02:31
booths? Is there merchandise? You know, dancing music? And he said, he said to me, he goes, well,
1:02:38
now Scott, I ain't gonna lie to you. I had a band lined up. He said, but the singer just got
1:02:44
locked up and said, Jill, I don't know what the hell I'm gonna do. And I said, and I said,
1:02:48
really? Did I mention that I'm a singer and a guitar player and a musician? And he's like, no.
1:02:53
And I said, well, let me do this. I said, how about I just bring my acoustic, my PA system.
1:02:59
And if I get there, you know, I come out by my car, I'll strum a couple of tunes. If you think I
1:03:05
suck, no harm, no foul, we'll put it back in the back of the car and, you know, it'd be a day.
1:03:09
He said, oh, man, it's gonna be awesome. So I ended up playing music. But some of the funny
1:03:14
things on that one, I just remember being there. And I learned there's a lot of history in the
1:03:19
clan, and you have to study it to get to join the clan. You get naturalized, but then you've got to
1:03:25
you've got to take a K Uno test, a K duo test. And anyway, I pass those tests.
1:03:31
But it's a lot of history there. But one of the things was they had like this 30 foot cross,
1:03:37
it was steel, and you wrap it in burlap, and then you put steel twine or whatever around it to hold
1:03:43
the burlap, soak it in diesel fuel, which they call clan cologne, because there's really no way to
1:03:48
stand that cross up without it getting on you. So they call it clan cologne. And I remember asking,
1:03:54
asking the club, I said, hey, is it going to be a cross burning the night? And he's like,
1:04:01
now Scott, it's not a cross burning. That'd be sacrilegious. And I'm like, oh, and he goes,
1:04:07
it's a cross lighting. He said, it signifies the light of Jesus Christ coming down into the world
1:04:13
and driving the darkness out. And I'm like, Oh, okay. So Jesus was just a white guy. I got it.
1:04:20
All right, of course, cool. Not a Middle Eastern Jew. That would make any sense.
1:04:24
No way at all, man. So yeah, that in that case kind of went a ride, you know, a source in the case
1:04:31
agent kind of crap the bed, you know, nothing, nothing ever happened. But I did play two rallies
1:04:36
there out in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Alabama.
1:04:40
And Scott, how many people have that on the resume? I mean, I think you should put that on a business
1:04:44
card, man, former clan concert guy, dude. Yeah, I think that kind of works out for you, but
1:04:49
where you really, so that kind of, you know, wedded your appetite for for that whole thing,
1:04:53
the white supremacy side. But there's there's another thing that I want you to get into,
1:04:57
because I do want to talk about acceleration is how they're different. Because when people
1:05:00
think about white supremacy, they normally think about dorks and robes, you know,
1:05:04
lighting up crosses as a word. But I want to read this quote from the book. In 23 years,
1:05:09
I was at this point at 23 years undercover work that I have done, I've never had to burn Bibles
1:05:14
or set fire to an American flag. I'd dance your never been with a group of people who stole a goat
1:05:20
and sacrificed it at a pagan ritual, then drank its blood. I did all that in just three days with
1:05:27
the base. And so a lot of people are not going to be very familiar with the base. But I think
1:05:31
the base could be one of those groups that could be in the acceleration is category. And so
1:05:37
acceleration is should not be seen in the same way as racial separatists or white supremacists or
1:05:44
people that just think, you know, black people aren't technically human beings, or, you know,
1:05:48
we shouldn't integrate the schools and any of that stuff that people think about when they think
1:05:52
of the KKK. So how about we start with you telling us what exactly is an acceleration is group right
1:05:58
now? And then let's go into talking a little bit more about the base. Okay. So this is what we
1:06:05
learned what I learned going into these groups. An accelerationist is essentially this. They
1:06:12
don't believe that there's a political solution to save the white race. They believe that society
1:06:17
is going to collapse either on its own or from man-made events. And they want to speed it up
1:06:21
hence accelerate. There is a book called siege that was written by James Mason, a long time
1:06:27
white supremacist. He created Adam Waffen. And that was kind of like the main acceleration is group.
1:06:36
And then the base comes around. The base was kind of like an umbrella group. So pretty much
1:06:42
anybody that I met in the base was also a member of some other white supremacist neo-Nazi group.
1:06:47
And there was actually members of Adam Waffen that were in the base as well. So if you hear
1:06:53
siege culture, siege mentality, it's all like that book, which is basically a bunch of articles
1:06:58
that he put together. But I mean, he like, they get to more of, in the accelerationist view,
1:07:05
they're looking at more guerrilla warfare. In other words, they do not, they don't care about
1:07:09
doing the Charlottesville standing out there with signs and screaming racial slurs. And
1:07:14
they say that does no good. You're doing nothing. Plus, you're making yourself an easy target.
1:07:20
We want to do things like poison water systems, take down power grids, derail trains, murder,
1:07:26
you know, stuff like that. And the accelerationist group, the base that I infiltrated,
1:07:31
pretty much everybody was pagan. There's a, there's a long line of white supremacy that
1:07:38
used, they call it Christian identity, not to confuse being a Christ follower. They call it
1:07:44
Christian identity. And that was back in the Reverend Butler, Red Ray Fair area nation days.
1:07:49
They take that and they take the, they take the story of the Garden of Eden. And it's kind of the
1:07:55
same story. It's still Adam and Eve. It's still Cain and Abel. It's still a serpent. It's still
1:08:00
fruit of the forbidden tree, except the fruit of the forbidden tree is now a sexual act with the
1:08:08
serpent, which was a man of color, aka Satan. And they say that the offspring of the sexual
1:08:16
contact or sexual intercourse with the demon, Satan was, the offspring was Cain. And that is
1:08:23
what they call the mud race all the way down, but the offspring between Adam and Eve was able,
1:08:27
and that's the pure white race. So that's a heck of a twist, but you start seeing a lot more paganism.
1:08:32
So you get like Norse mythology or whatever. So you see that, but I mean, you saw that
1:08:39
with Hitler too. He was, he was big in the Norse mythology. But I will tell you this, at most,
1:08:45
at least within the last couple of years, I don't have my finger right on the pulse in this last year
1:08:51
so much, but the accelerations groups, if you scratch the surface enough and you start looking,
1:08:58
somewhere you're probably going to find in that group that there's a member of order of nine
1:09:02
angles or some other groups like that, which are heavily satanic white supremacy groups.
1:09:07
I mean, they post some horrific stuff on these dark web kind of apps. And I mean, it's like
1:09:13
child mutilation, stuff like that, a lot of rape, things like that. But that's what we kind of,
1:09:19
that's what we kind of found when I got in the base.
1:09:21
And so the interesting thing about that is I feel like there was around the time that
1:09:28
Antifa and Black Lives Matter was destroying the country back in 2020 after George Floyd died
1:09:33
in police custody. Two billion dollars worth of damage, people were killed, like police
1:09:37
precincts were taken over all these different things. It seemed like the media and the political
1:09:42
narrative at the time, because obviously the Biden administration was in power was that, okay,
1:09:48
it's not, we don't have to worry about these people. We need to worry about domestic terrorism
1:09:52
coming specifically from white supremacists. And they loved using the example of Dylan roof,
1:09:56
who you talk about in the book, who is basically worshiped by a lot of these groups.
1:10:00
But I got to say from someone who doesn't do this all day, every day, it seemed like that threat
1:10:05
was basically like a distraction like, Hey, look over here, not to say that it doesn't exist,
1:10:10
but to pretend like, Hey, there's literally a building on fire over here right now, but you want
1:10:15
me to worry about some guys that are gathering, you know, in the bushes, you know, passing around
1:10:20
these, these different stories. And then there's the obvious things where there were like,
1:10:24
clearly feds that were showing up and doing these, we're going to hold flags and walk down to the
1:10:29
national mall and things like that. And then all of a sudden, Cash Patel takes over the FBI and
1:10:33
these groups just don't exist anymore. And so there's a lot of like, I know we're getting to some,
1:10:39
you know, itchy territory for a lot of people because there's a lot of people that are like,
1:10:43
wait, I don't think we're focusing on the right things, but these groups do exist,
1:10:46
but they're obviously not flying planes into buildings. So kind of help me unravel this a
1:10:50
little bit because just being a civvy, I'm just like, I'm not really worried about these dorks
1:10:56
doing things and getting into the water supply, not saying that we shouldn't watch them. It shouldn't
1:10:59
pay attention and shouldn't infiltrate, try to stop them. But I just don't know that it's the
1:11:03
threat that I should be worried about. If that makes sense. Sure. That's bad. We can. We can
1:11:09
spend hours on it. We can spend hours on it. You make a very good point. And from the inside,
1:11:20
by the end of my career, I was like the domestic terrorism guy in East Tennessee. But I was also
1:11:27
the undercover coordinator. We were running undercover ops and they were all kind of bouncing off
1:11:32
the domestic terrorism. So that's what we saw. You can also tie that to why I started working
1:11:37
that stuff. I mean, we kind of were moving away from biker gang stuff. And it was really becoming
1:11:43
more prominent to see this domestic terrorism threat. And my skill set fit there. You make a
1:11:49
very good point, though, that when all those buildings were being set on fire and police
1:11:55
departments and courthouses might have been taken over and whatnot. What were we doing law enforcement
1:12:01
wise? I can tell you from personal experience that I come back as a case agent, I go, Hey,
1:12:06
I tell my boss at the time, I'm like, Hey, I just left, you know, this county. I'm sitting down
1:12:12
with him. I said, I might have a Black Lives Matter case, you know. And my boss, I remember
1:12:19
him going, Oh, and I go, Oh, and he goes, yeah, headquarters really looks at those really closely.
1:12:25
I said, as they should every case, I said, I don't care what I'm colorblind, man, if you're
1:12:30
breaking the law, I mean, if you just came in and reported it, I'm like, Hey, you know,
1:12:35
let's work this. So you got a good argument there. But for me, my skill set led me to these things.
1:12:42
Now to counter some of the stuff that you were, you said, you see, and you were thinking,
1:12:47
these groups are there. And we do need to worry about them. Because that's what always happens,
1:12:51
right? We look back at the gang phenomenon when it started really growing in the 80s like that,
1:12:56
that kind of street gang thing. You'd have somebody show up and happen in my county. And I was one
1:13:00
of the idiots too. There's like eight, the Crips. Okay, boy, you need to go back to California.
1:13:05
They know Crips in South Carolina. Well, guess what? About two months later, Crips everywhere,
1:13:09
because there was one and they started a whole new thing. This, this was coming on our radar,
1:13:15
because you got to remember, well, I say you got to remember as if you know, there's a lot of
1:13:20
people out there that do not know the darkness that is on this planet. And so there's, there's like
1:13:27
discord, 4chan, 8chan, 12chan, 3ma, riot, anything like that. And a lot of these people that are
1:13:36
up to nefarious things wanting to do bad acts. I'm not saying that everybody on there is that way,
1:13:43
but there are groups like whites only, 14 words. And you get into these telegram chats and
1:13:50
tear away all this other stuff. And it's just white supremacy. And again, from the law enforcement
1:13:57
side, we're sitting there and you're looking at thousands upon thousands of, I mean, just
1:14:02
some of the most crude, evil things you can say about somebody that's not white or that are not
1:14:11
Anglo. Maybe they, they, they, they cannot stand the Jewish people. And, but out of all of those,
1:14:19
in America, we have a constitution. You have First Amendment, freedom of speech. You can walk
1:14:24
out in the street and say, I hate all insert whatever racial slur you want. You can say,
1:14:29
I hope all insert racial slur die. That's not illegal. But how do we know which one of those
1:14:35
thousands, if any, are planning to do something really bad? And that's, that's how the base came
1:14:41
on our radar. And because they were, there were some people that were spewing some crazy stuff,
1:14:45
our world working partners, like UK, Australia, they were seeing members of the base. And they
1:14:50
were like, Hey, it looks like this is kind of coming out of the United States. And we all started
1:14:54
working it. Well, and you talk about in the book, there were some people that y'all caught,
1:14:58
that when y'all caught them, they were like, I'm so glad y'all caught me, because it was almost
1:15:03
like they were being compelled by a dark force, but let's just call it what it is, a satanic force
1:15:08
to do something negative, right? To do something where they take human life. And I remember growing
1:15:13
up in law in Oklahoma, kind of a rough city in Southwest Oklahoma, when I was, you know,
1:15:17
high school, 2002, 2003, 2004, the gangs were just kind of funny, like they would fight each other,
1:15:22
but they weren't, you know, doing like big stuff. But towards my senior year, I was like,
1:15:27
wait a minute, like, because there were a lot of different Crip sets, Hovers, that was really big
1:15:32
in our town. And the gangs didn't just start fighting. They, they started shooting each other.
1:15:36
And then they started like running girls and running drugs and doing a whole lot more stuff.
1:15:40
And it all kind of happened there on the back end, where it's just like, yeah, it's all fun and
1:15:45
games. It's all funny until until it's not until it turns in a different way. But man,
1:15:49
we've gone everywhere in this conversation. Let's go ahead and put a bow on it. My biggest thing,
1:15:53
as I was reading your book, Scott was, what about your safety now? Because people have long
1:15:59
memories, okay? And you put some people away for a very, very long time. But some of the people you
1:16:03
put away are already out there. And here you are writing a book with your face on it, with your name
1:16:08
on it, right? And you don't exactly make yourself super hard to find. And I know you're a capable
1:16:13
guy, you understand weapons systems, you understand protection, and all the different things.
1:16:17
But what about your safety now? And I guess what does life look like now that you, you've been
1:16:22
retired for a few years, and now you're just trying to operate in the world?
1:16:26
I was going to be, I was going to use my stupid sense of hearing good. Wait a minute, I didn't
1:16:31
think about that. Oh, no, yeah, I know you thought about it. I'm like, wait, dad, come
1:16:37
it, shoot, take my face off the book right now. I look, probably the easiest way to explain it
1:16:45
is this in the criminal world, even as a cop, or as a case agent, you arrest people, you put
1:16:51
people in jail all the time, you may run into them again. Again, that propensity for violence,
1:16:56
what's that retaliation? For me personally, my best defense is a good offense. I just go and
1:17:01
approach it. I remember I came from a local law enforcement level. And if you got threatened at
1:17:07
a local level, the county is not going to take money out of their budget and move you to a different
1:17:11
county. But when you get in the FBI, if you got a threat, or you feel threatened, once you hit that
1:17:16
threat button, headquarters is coming and you're going to get moved. And you don't have a choice
1:17:21
of where you're going. Sometimes they move you and you didn't even hit the button, but they come in
1:17:25
and move you. But in the criminal world, all these undercovers, with the exception of a couple that
1:17:31
were classified, once I may have been arrested with you, you may not know it's me, but at some
1:17:38
point you're going to sit down with your defense attorney and you're going to get what we call
1:17:42
discovery, which is supposed to be everything that we have built in the case against you,
1:17:46
including my notes, including text messages that I may have sent back and forth about a target.
1:17:53
So they're going to be sitting with their attorney and they're going to hear the recording and
1:17:56
they're going to know that I was the undercover. They may not have known my last name was pain.
1:18:00
And that's just kind of the way it is. I bought into the threat thing once or twice and I was like,
1:18:08
man, I may have to move. And then really, it was when I was sitting at church, you know, and I'm
1:18:13
sitting at church and I'm like, wait a minute, this is my town. Now that I'm, I know that they're
1:18:17
arrested and this case is taken down, I'm overt now for that section. I'm not going back there ever
1:18:22
again to work undercover. They all know. And essentially, I just don't live in fear. I mean,
1:18:29
I'm not fear of the Lord. Yeah, but I mean, I don't walk around on eggshells, but I don't walk
1:18:35
around with a blind eye either. I mean, there's only one way in and out of my where I live,
1:18:41
you got to pass two of my pastors to get to me. I'm on the hill. Me personally, I'm just, you know,
1:18:50
it doesn't bother me that much. My, my wife and kids, yeah, I don't want them concerned or worried,
1:18:58
but my wife coined this term. And man, I wish I'd have thought about it and to put in the book
1:19:03
or she would have thought about it to put in the book. But I always talk about undercover,
1:19:08
we're talking undercover, you were undercover, you were undercover. And then one day she goes,
1:19:12
yeah, but the entire time you were under his cover. And I was like,
1:19:17
holy cow, man, that is unbelievable. That is absolutely right. So that's, that's kind of,
1:19:24
you can't live in fear. And again, especially if you're in law enforcement, I mean, you can do
1:19:31
things. I mean, don't be stupid. But do you know how hard it is to like erase yourself? I mean,
1:19:35
in this day and age, like when we built my home, I would have had to not have my name anywhere on
1:19:40
it, not be anywhere on my wife's Facebook. Yeah, I was just, you know, and again, like you said
1:19:46
earlier, I made friends with a lot of these people. These people still called me after they were arrested,
1:19:51
drunk down me. Hey, Scott, is she boy? I know you just doing your job. I love you, brother.
1:19:58
And I'm like, I love you too, man. There's nothing. I mean, I don't, I don't hate you. I mean,
1:20:03
I've told so many people that I've arrested over the years, I'll sit down with them. I'm like,
1:20:06
I'm not saying, I think you're a bad person. I'm not saying I disagree with what you did.
1:20:11
I'm just saying you're an adult. You chose to break the law and you got caught. So here we are.
1:20:16
So here we are. Well, hey, man, we've gone everywhere in this conversation. This went about
1:20:21
as spectacularly as I thought it was going to go. But that's all for me. Is there anything else you
1:20:24
want to get off your chest? Oh, man. Well, I mean, you know, in the time we haven't wanted, yeah,
1:20:32
stop hating. Yeah, we'll do our best. It's too much energy and it's not rewarding. Love, man.
1:20:37
Love. No, just keep spreading knowledge. Keep spreading knowledge. But for this,
1:20:42
for this listening crowd, normally I don't get to speak quite like this, especially if I'm in
1:20:46
a instructor for an organization, you know, you can't like, you can't preach. You know,
1:20:52
sometimes I'll be getting out of a car like we're doing tactical stuff and I'll be crawling out
1:20:56
of a beat up car and I might say, help me, baby Jesus. I say, I mean, or, Allah or Satan, Odin,
1:21:02
whatever you think is, man, whoever can help me. Yeah, I know. But for this crowd, man, just
1:21:07
I said it Monday when I tell it, I said, if you don't have faith, I'm not preaching to you. But
1:21:13
if you're doing this and you're out there on your own, you better believe in something.
1:21:16
All right, Scott, I appreciate you. Thanks for coming on. Thanks, brother.
1:21:19
There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Scott Payne, but before I let you go,
1:21:23
we are going to do a quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life Remission is equipping
1:21:26
men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual mental and physical resilience.
1:21:30
So I've got a link to where you can pick up your copy of code name pale horse guys. It's a fantastic
1:21:35
book. Go on the show notes and check it out. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Wherever
1:21:39
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1:22:05
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1:22:10
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual,
1:22:16
mental and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:22:40
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