What's It Like To Be An FBI Agent?

Donald Albracht • 2024-01-02

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Dylan Carnahan:Welcome to the Simple Questions Podcast. This is your host, Dylan Carnahan. The question for this episode is, what is it like to be an FBI agent? You will learn in this episode, the process of becoming a special agent, misconceptions surrounding the FBI, and situations that require a SWAT team. Our guest has 25 years of tactical experience as an FBI SWAT team member, has investigative experience in violent crime, terrorism, foreign counterintelligence, and public corruption, and is a two-time recipient of the FBI Shield of Bravery. I introduce to you Donald Albracht. I am about 11 years old when my dad turns on the TV and we begin to watch The X-Files. And in The X-Files, there are two FBI agents, Agent Mulder and Agent Scully. And that was kind of my first introduction to the FBI. Now, obviously, as time has passed, my perspective has matured and become less fictionalized, but that was my first introduction to the FBI. So Don, can you describe how you became interested and then a part of the FBI?

Donald Albracht:Well, it's kind of happened in phases. I was in high school and wasn't a very good high school student because I liked to party too much. I was not very well supervised, but I did have a great time. But this was during Vietnam, and I had two brothers that were in Vietnam. And so my goal was to go into the Army and go to Vietnam, just like them. And so that was my short-term goal. And I didn't really think of it past that point. And then, of course, I did go in the service and the Army. I was stationed with the 82nd Airborne Division the entire time, stateside, never went to Vietnam because Vietnam basically ended right when I went in. So I was in, I'm considered a Vietnam veteran as a Vietnam era veteran, but obviously not a combat veteran. I never set foot in Vietnam. But when I got out, getting ready to get out, I had occasion to be home visiting with my brother who had just gotten hired by the Secret Service. And he had been out, of course, to the Army, gotten his college degree, got hired by the Secret Service, and went down to meet him in Springfield, Illinois, from where I grew up in Rock Island, Illinois. And went down there to visit with him, and he took me to the range. I met some Secret Service agents, and I got to shoot the Uzi, and all kinds of good stuff like that. Really fun. And it was one of these typical situations where suddenly something opened up to me that I had not considered is that I could be in federal law enforcement if I could get my college degree. I said, well, now that is something I think I could do. I think I could have fun doing that. So I've always been interested in being a police officer because I just kind of gravitated to that type of thing. I had a lot of respect for them. But I probably toyed with the idea a few times. But when I actually saw my brother had accomplished it, I thought to myself, I said, this is within my reach. So long story short, I went to college, got my degree. I had a degree in business because I had to have a job when I got a college. So you can't just get hired by any law enforcement agency on the drop of the hat. Very rarely does that happen. It takes usually months, if not years. And in my case, it took four years. And I had applied to everybody that carried a badge and a gun. I had a college degree, but they always hire guys who were experienced. And I was always in the top finishers and that type of thing. But my goal was to get into federal law enforcement. And then there was, that was back in the 80s. And Reagan came in during the recession and had a hiring freeze for two years. So that stopped everything in his tracks. And then come along 1983, resume the process and I got into the FBI in 1984. I went to the Academy, but I ended up in San Diego first office. So it was a lot of fun. I said this was a good start. Being there, I first got assigned to foreign counterintelligence, realized that I didn't have the temperament or the patience or any of the attributes I needed to be a former counter intelligence agent. So I decided to request to get transferred to violent crime. And that's where I first made my debut in violent crime investigations. And there was a match made in heaven. So I did violent crime, and I got on the SWAT team in San Diego. And because that was just a natural fit for me. I had always been interested in team sports, that type of stuff. So I thought, well, you know what, this will be a chance to, and I could shoot. And really, the driving thing was to be on a team and to be able to shoot a lot, which I like to shoot. So I was taught how to shoot by the FBI, and I learned it quickly, and I was pretty good. And so I said, you know what, any skills I pick up here will keep me alive on the street. So I ended up getting on the team, and then, of course, working violent crime the entire time I was in San Diego. And had some great cases, unbelievable cases, actually. And then, you know, then, of course, you're only there for a short time, like three, four years, and then you're off to a big office. And then I end up in New York, and then, you know, and then my life goes on from there. But a snapshot is that I went from San Diego to New York. When you get to New York, they plug you in where they need bodies, and you got no, hey, I thought, hey, you know, I worked violent crime, maybe that's where I'll work now. It just so happened, they needed people in terrorism. So I went to work, international terrorism, did that for like, you know, like four years, and had an opportunity to break away and do an undercover assignment for six months. Did that, came back, and then I got back to violent crime. I got on the fugitive squad in New York and worked that for the remainder of my time in New York and then eventually got senior enough to work and pick where I wanted to go. And how it works, the FBI is the senior guys retire from these small to medium size offices. Well, they retire all over the FBI, but the shortage is critical in these small to medium size offices, so they backfill those retirements with senior agents or the veterans basically from bigger offices who want to get transferred back to their region of their home state or something like that. So I was being from Illinois, I didn't want to go back to Illinois. So I decided I wanted to go to a place where my children would have some opportunities and I picked a large city like Kansas City, but not too large, like Chicago, just like trade New York for Chicago, that's no good deal. But I picked Kansas City because it was one of the most violent cities in the United States per capita. And I said, well, this will be a good place to work. And then, but yeah, I can live in the suburbs and my kids have good school. So it kind of filled the gap. But then I worked out here, they stuck me on white collar crime. I got stuck working that for a while, which it wasn't bad. I learned a few things and did well. Eventually, I was able to be transferred to the gang squad and worked that for a bit. And then they had openings on the fugitive task force. I ended up going over there. And of course, during this time, I'm working gangs for like a year or two.

Dylan Carnahan:I worked gangs.

Donald Albracht:But then I was working bank robberies in here and extortions and kidnappings, things like that. And then we actually started this fugitive task force, which had been going on for quite a while. But it was kind of like a violent crime slash fugitive task force. We did everything. And so I not only worked cases, but I also tracked fugitives with the police officers. And it was exactly the same. It was just a smaller version of what I did in New York. So it was a lot more action because we're right on the state line. And so we're constantly chasing guys back and forth across the state line, making it a federal violation. And I did that up until the time I retired. And I was also on SWAT in New York and also I had some great missions in New York, probably one of the bigger ones I've ever been on. And then of course when I got to Kansas City, I continued my time on SWAT up until I got too old to do it. But my last few years, I was a team leader. And then I retired from that and just worked cases and finished my career that way. But I had a lot of interesting assignments that way, going overseas, Afghanistan, things like that. So I had a pretty broad-based career in terms of violent crime in three different offices, but SWAT also. I mean, I served on SWAT three different offices. So I got to see quite a bit of the FBI's programs from my vantage points.

Dylan Carnahan:What a career for a 28-year tenure, right? A lot of different areas. So, Don, to the uninitiated, you kind of mentioned your career. What is a typical career progression look like for a special agent?

Donald Albracht:Well, it kind of centers, used to center around transfers, but because we're the needs of the FBI, basically. And it changed, it constantly, one thing it's constant is change. And so it changed completely. When I was in, there's always been a critical shortage of people in big offices. They need, because that's where the bulk of the work is done. We have like, I think we're up to like 17 of the largest offices are where all the manpower goes. And when I was in, it was called a top 12. And then over time, when I first came in, it was top 12. And then it went up to 15 and on up to 17 things. I could be 18 for all I know now. But these are the largest offices in the country. And so when you get out of the academy, you're going to be assigned to a small to medium sized office to learn how to train, get your training, go through your probation period. You'll be assigned to a senior agent. You work with a veteran. He teaches you the culture of the FBI, the ins and outs of investigation. Make sure that you get time in court testifying, things like that. And then go through all the checkpoints of processing evidence and crime scenes and whatnot. And then, of course, being in front of a judge, filing complaints, testifying in court hearings, and that sort of thing. And basically get you rounded out. And then, of course, as you get experienced, you get more complex cases. And then, of course, like I said, and I'm all referring to my time, my time. This was when I first, I think back in the early 80s, you spent a year and a half in your first office, then you went to a big office. Then they stretched that out to like three or four years. And that's what I did. I had three and a half years in San Diego, right to New York. And that's where I stayed until I became senior enough to transfer to Kansas City. And that's on a seniority basis. So there's a list of people who go, you know, you can want to go some place like Kansas City, you put your name on a list and it goes by seniority. And because New York was such a difficult place to staff, there's nobody wants to go there. In fact, during my time, New York was not atypical of a lot of big offices, but the problem in New York was acute, that every four agents that got orders for New York, only one stayed for any length of time. It was the first agent, like one agent out of four, would get his orders and he would quit because New York was so expensive, and it's considered a hardship. And because it was cost of living and the commute and the work, the city's dangerous. In fact, I was there during one of the most dangerous times in the city's history. I think it was worse then than it is now, which is saying something. But it was at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic. And back then, an agent would quit when getting his orders. A second agent would quit after he did his house hunting tour and said, well, I can't live, I got to live 80 miles out. So until we're able to afford a house. And these are agents that are barely making, back then were GS10s. Well, by that time I was a 12, I think. I think if you went to New York, no matter what your rank was at that time, you got promoted to a GS12 because of the cost of living. So I came there and I think I got my GS12 about five months earlier. And so I ended up becoming a GS12. That's still, I had to live 80 miles out. I lived in Philadelphia, essentially. I lived in the northeast suburb of Philadelphia. That's where I lived. I drove through Newark and through Philly, Newark and then into New York every day for 80 miles each way. And I did that the entire time I was in New York. Now, backing up, one agent would quit and get his orders. One agent would quit after doing his house tour and then realized, hey, there's nothing that I can afford. And then the third agent would quit after doing about a year in New York. And they'd say, you know what? I can't take this. I got to go. But maybe for my family, whatever, they would bail out. But the fourth agent would stay and that was me. But there was a reason for that. I would have stayed, I think, no matter what. But they did finally say, in order to stop this bleeding of personnel, they spent a lot of money to hire us, the recruiters hire us and train us. And they said, we can't lose, 75 percent of all the people who are transferring to New York are not lasting more than a year, if that from zero to one year. So they said, we got to do something. So they came in and they created a thing called Demonstration Project where they went in and said, we're going to pay the agents in New York 25 percent more per year than they would normally get to see if that can staunch the flow of the bleeding of the personnel. And it was a five-year project and it worked. I was a beneficiary of that. I'd done a year already without it, and that was bad enough. But once that money started coming in, then it was tolerable. And I couldn't move any closer because cost of living and housing is still pretty bad. But at least I wasn't living paycheck to paycheck. I could actually get ahead of my bills for a change. But we had literally had agents live in cars and that kind of stuff in New York, especially if there was any, people would live too far out and they couldn't drive back and forth, so they would just sleep in the car and come back to work. So it was that bad at one time back in the 80s. And then when we finally got the money and it started to turn around, and then of course the proof was in the pudding, the people stopped.

Dylan Carnahan:The turnover rate dropped.

Donald Albracht:Right. And then it kind of got to the point where people would volunteer to come to New York. While the project worked so well, they decided that, and this was, of course, this was a problem across the federal law enforcement spectrum. And so the people in Newark, New Jersey, weren't getting any money, but they had to pay the same prices that everybody else did. And they had the same problem. They didn't have as bad a commute, but they had most of the other things that we did. So they came up with a cost of living adjustment for law enforcement. It's been in public law now. I forget what the number is, but it's been in ever since the 90s. And it has made the difference. So every federal law enforcement officer across the country gets a stipend, if you will, to match the cost of living in that area, to match what his civilian, or not his civilian, but his local and state counterparts are making. Because we were making less than the garbage men in New York, and that's fact. And there was, and we would make less than a lot of, you know, like say, a sergeant or a lieutenant in the police department, we'd make more than we would. And so they made it so a captain in a police department was the baseline for all FBI agents. Because we had, you know, a lot of us had advanced degrees and everything, so it was based on the education level and the type of complex investigations they do. They said, we're gonna base it, we're gonna tie it to what a captain, and then the local police department makes, and we're gonna match that salary. And that's basically what they end up doing. So that made New York more tolerable.

Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, that is wild, Don. I think it would be hard for people nowadays to imagine, you know, an FBI agent having to sleep in a car because the cost of living is so high, because that wasn't calculated in when they were transferred. I mean, that's wild.

Donald Albracht:Black people living like with their family members in Connecticut or Vermont, or, you know, way out in Pennsylvania. That's, you know, I was in Pennsylvania. It was, like I said, it was in that when I, right before I went to New York, I got my orders in 83, the fall of 83. And I started, you know, back then, we didn't have internet. So you had to write to the chambers of commerce and, you know, get realtors and get information that way. And I remember reading some information that said that the prices in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where I was living, had gone up 28% that fall. And I said, oh, for Pete's sake, my timing is always perfect. In other words, you'll buy high, sell low, you know. So I sure enough, I got there. And if the prices went up that much there, the reason was because everybody who couldn't afford to live in New Jersey moved to Pennsylvania. And then, of course, that drove prices up. And that was the case up and down the Delaware River. Everybody who worked in New York City or New Jersey and couldn't afford to live there, lived across the river in Pennsylvania and then commuted it all into the city or into other places in New Jersey. So it was just the way it is. That's the way it is on the East Coast. I just came back from this weekend from New York City. It's a madhouse. It's absolutely mad. I don't know how I got friends that still live back there. They can't take it. They're born and raised there. But they're just I was just back there for a SWAT 50th SWAT reunion. It was the FBI SWAT started in 1973. And the New York team had a celebration that we had on all these. All the guys were on the New York team came back and and we had this big party. It was a lot of fun. But I'm talking to these guys that are retired there and they're like, you know, I can't I got to get out. But their families there, their kids are there, some of them are aging parents, you know. So they're kind of trapped in a way, but they're just, and they say it's just a madhouse. And of course, you know, I walked through the streets and we went to Spark Steakhouse, which was where Paul Castellano was killed. And back in like, I think it was 82 or something like that. But we walked about a mile on the streets and it was just absolute bedlam. Just as congested and crowded as I ever remember. And the traffic was unbelievable. You can't take a car to New York. No way. No way can you take a car into New York. You have to. And that's how we took a train in and then we walked. But it's, but that's, you know, that's just the way it was back then. I remember even back when I was there, we had to sign a bureau car and we'd get in the bureau car. And I said, you know, brand new agent in New York. I said, you know what? I'm going to go ahead. I got about six leads. I got a cover up in Manhattan. So myself and another new agent in New York would jump in a car and off we go. And between the two of us, we each got exactly one lead covered that day. It took that long to get through the traffic. No parking. One of us would have to sit in the car or drive it around while the other one did the lead. And it was it was absolute nonsense. I mean, and we had we had preferred parking with a placard, a police placard, but you couldn't, you still couldn't find a place. If there's no place to park, then there's no place to park. So it was just that it was just chaos. And like I said, I I I learned to appreciate other parts of the country that aren't so aren't so crazy. But it was like I said, there's a reason why they they they consider New York to be a hardship to our end. But but on the other hand, the upside is, is the cases are unbelievable.

Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, the exposure.

Donald Albracht:Yeah, I mean, you know, we work terrorism cases, the real deal. We had a case in New York where it was not my case, but I was it was I was it was handled off of the squad of that our squads, I should say. They work terrorism off the branch.

Dylan Carnahan:I worked on it.

Donald Albracht:And then I had gone to fugitives at this point. But that's when the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and well, you know, without getting into all the history of that, they bombed it. And that's, you know, that way they tried to take it down. They failed the first time. And when they did, they immediately cranked up another attack, a plan to attack the Holland Tunnel, the Lincoln Tunnel, the FBI office, the UN. And a fifth place, I think it was like at least four or five places. And they were going to bomb, drive truck bombs in all these places. So they got blow up Holland Tunnel, blow up the Lincoln Tunnel, drive, you know, blowing up in the UN., blowing up in the basement of the federal building where the FBI, which is the federal building in New York, is the second largest federal building in the United States next to the Pentagon. And so they were going to just basically drive it right underneath the building and blow it up. So that was luckily we got wind of that and thwarted that plot. And I was on the team that actually went in and arrested the bombers as they're making a bomb. So that was that was probably the highlight of my SWAT career doing doing that one. So that was it was like something out of a Tom Clancy movie.

Dylan Carnahan:So, Don, let's let's take a step back. That's a great example there. What situations require a SWAT team and how are those operations performed?

Donald Albracht:Well, we have a protocol not unlike what the local police have. You know, the SWAT guy, the old saying is when you need police, you dial 9-1-1. When the police need help, then they dial SWAT. Well, it's and that's kind of that's kind of what it is. That doesn't make us better. It just makes us different. You know, police officers are, you know, the average street agent confront dangerous situations every day. But, you know, the difference between a police officer and an FBI agent, for example, is we often aren't confronted with these rapidly evolving situations that are unknown, that all of a sudden develop right there. When a police officer makes a car stop or goes to a domestic violation or domestic disturbance, something like that, those are the things that just happen rapidly and can spiral out of control in an instant. Well, with the FBI, we're usually working long term investigations, and we are going to take down the subjects in a precise way. At a given time, we're going to plan. We know we're going to have the people there. We're going to stack all the odds in our favor, and when we'll go in and make our arrest. Well, when our intelligence is such that it said, okay, we have a very dangerous person or persons, very heavily armed and likely to resist. And there's a lot of factors that say, okay, this rises to the level of a SWAT operation and which will bring in assets that we normally wouldn't have, personnel we normally wouldn't have. Unfortunately, a very higher level of supervision that we normally wouldn't have, which means the head of the office, the special agent in charge would be observing and monitoring this situation. Which makes it not necessarily more problematic, but it does add another layer of bureaucracy on top of the case as it already has. It's bad enough as it is. But those kind of things tend to slow things down a little bit, which is good in some ways. And then, of course, if we have a situation like a bank robbery where they take over a bank and then there's a hostage situation, the police will respond because they're going to get there first. But then if it gets protracted, our SWAT team would respond because we were responsible for bank robberies. So we have joint jurisdiction with, say, the NYPD, for example. And we would show up at a bank robbery, and then there would be a negotiations, of course, to get the hostages out, that kind of thing. And if ever there was a situation where we had to make entry, then usually we can't stay on scene 24-7. We'll have to be tied into the... In some cases, the NYPD say, hey, you got this, this is yours now, we got other stuff to do. Or they may say, hey, we'll work with you and we'll just interface our teams so that you'll do a shift, we'll do a shift, that type of thing. And so when the time comes to make a deliberate assault to rescue the hostages, that would probably be done by the FBI just simply because... And not necessarily because the NYPD, as a unique example, has as much as if not more than the FBI SWAT resources would have. They have an incredible, incredible ability to call on resources at the NYPD. But in most cases, the locals would probably defer to us because we have the manpower and the equipment and resources that they don't have. And very few departments can match us in that case, NYPD being one of them. So there would be a barricade subject, hostage situation, very high level of danger that could be beyond the capabilities of the average street agent. But then there's a lot of things that fall in between. So if there's a... Many, many, many times we've done arrests in conjunction with the case squad. Let's say there's a white collar crime case. Generally, you can call these guys attorneys and say, Hey, have your guy come in and surrender and that's it. There's no muscle fuss, which is a great way to do it if you can, because that would prevent any potential injury to either us or them. But a lot of times you get different cases that there may be a violent person in the middle, maybe not rise to the level of SWAT, but maybe more violent than the average agent would be prepared to meet. And then we'll just interject SWAT-trained agents into the mix. And we won't deploy the entire SWAT team, but we'll deploy SWAT-trained agents to assist in the arrest. So maybe two or three of us would go on the team, and we'll intersperse ourselves in the arrest team so we can help control and guide the arrest team and make the apprehension. So there's different situations it calls for. Unfortunately, you get a situation where the bosses, the management, they become risk-averse, and they go, you know, I don't want anybody to get hurt on my watch. And if I even hear the guy has a gun or has potential for having a firearm, then I'm using SWAT. Well, that's not what we're intended for, okay? The average agent is fully capable in making arrests of armed subjects. It's just that if the situation involves some kind of complex operation, then yes, SWAT needs to be used. But if it's just your average, you know, knock on a door and make an entry and arrest somebody or, you know, do a car stop in a prescribed manner, at a place where we're at the advantage, that should be easily handled by the average agent. It's that I'm told that there's a tendency in the last few years is to use SWAT for everything. And you hear a lot of stuff on TV, like a SWAT team hit the house, or an FBI SWAT team hits the house. Well, not necessarily. The body armor for the agents is the exact same body armor the SWAT agents wear. And so, yeah, you look like a SWAT guy, but you're not. If you've got helmets and uniforms, then you're probably going to be the SWAT team, okay? But if you're just wearing vests and you've got long guns, that doesn't make you the SWAT team. That just makes you a typical agent who will have those types of equipment. So there is a protocol and it does get abused from time to time. And I can only think back in the news of some of the arrests that have been made, that have made the news. And I think, you know what? That was probably not necessary for a SWAT team to go. If a SWAT team was in fact used.

Dylan Carnahan:Now, see, a lot of times, like I said, they just say that, you know, it's just the appearance to the novice would go, Oh, I'm not familiar with firearms or the federal government or whatever the case. Oh, that looks like SWAT, right? But that's just a Leo that has the accoutrements of just an average law enforcement officer.

Donald Albracht:Yeah, it's got the point. If you're in a suit and you knock on the door, well, then you're just making a typical arrest. But if you're in any kind of body armor or gear, you're SWAT. They think you're SWAT. So it's not necessarily true.

Dylan Carnahan:Don, I want to drill down on something. Maybe this would have been good to bring up earlier, but I know that you've been overseas. You bring up complex operations and the need for SWAT. You yourself, you have been overseas on the behalf of the FBI. Can you talk a little bit about those experiences and what the need was for you to be there?

Donald Albracht:Well, of course, after 9-11, we said we obviously got some serious intelligence gaps both at the CIA level and the FBI level. And there were a lot of reasons for that, not the least of which was a law that prevented the CIA and the FBI from communicating with each other when it came to people within the United States. Basically, you know, the CIA covers everything outside the United States. The FBI covers everything in the United States. And there was a, we call it a Chinese wall. It's a legal term for a separation of information. And this was actually put in place by the Clinton administration years ago for whatever reason. There was probably a good reason, just that it was over implemented, let's say. And then as a result, the CIA wasn't sharing information with us. We weren't sharing information with the CIA. It led to 9-11. After that, we said, hey, you know, we need to make, we need to be able to develop our intelligence better, and we have to get to it faster, and it had to be disseminated quicker, and that type of stuff. So when the real-time intelligence that was needed to protect the United States after 9-11 was overseas in Afghanistan, that's where Al Qaeda was. So that's where we went. We went with the military. Now, we're not, you know, most of us, I would say, well, I would say a good majority of these, and they only sent, by the way, SWAT-trained agents, okay? And but the majority of, well, I shouldn't say that. In a combat role, we went, as advisors, we weren't, we were considered, quote unquote, noncombatants, which was stupid because, you know, we went out with these guys.

Dylan Carnahan:You were there with them. You're guilty by association, right?

Donald Albracht:Right. Yeah, we're embedded with them. We're embedded with them, and so when they go out on a mission, we go with them. So we're considered, the FBI called us noncombatants, but we, you know, that was not actually true. Many, many of us got into firefights and many of us, you know, nobody got wounded or killed, but we had people that were really involved in the thick of it. But the point of us being there was to obtain intelligence on the ground in Afghanistan or wherever they put us. And when we came across its raw intelligence, we could immediately pass it back to FBI headquarters, and it would be acted upon immediately. For example, we did a mission in Afghanistan where we captured a guy and we took him back to the camp. We were at a forward operating base up on the Pakistan border, and I was embedded with a special forces team, with a third group in basically the Green Berets, if you will. But it was myself and another agent. And we generally, sometimes we both go, if it was a combat mission, only one of us would go, unless it was really complex. But we would take turns going. And on this particular one, they brought back the guy, and in his pocket, we found a piece of paper. And I take that back. It was called pocket litter, whatever's in your pocket, a piece of paper, what not. But it was actually a notebook, like a little spiral notebook, like two inches by three inches, something like that. And inside was everything written in Arabic. And so I'm going, or Pashtun, as the case may be. But the numbers are numbers. And I saw a number in there that says 202 area code. And then like 324-3000, which is just for an example. That's like the number of the FBI building. But I saw this 202 area code in this number. I said, well, this is Washington, DC. How is it that this guy has this number here in his pocket in Afghanistan? So we literally pick up the phone, call our headquarters in Bagram, and we relay the information on a secure line to the people there and the people there passing along to the FBI headquarters back in DC. And by within 24 hours, somebody's running that number down to find out who it belongs to, and they start finding out everything they can about the person who has that phone number. And so I don't know what ever happened to that phone number. Could have been it was nothing, but it could have been it was to a restaurant that he ordered some food for. Who knows? But that's the kind of thing with Intel, where you gather information, you never know if at least anything, unless it's something really big.

Dylan Carnahan:And you were able to expedite that process, as you're saying. You're there. You have this individual. You get that intelligence from that notebook. Now you're making a phone call, right? And I'm sure everyone can attest that has a job. There's a lot of bureaucracy that can go on, and I can only imagine with the type of operations you're performing and the organizations you're working with, how difficult it might be to get information from one end to another.

Donald Albracht:In the past, what the information had to do is it had to go up, like over there. What we were doing was called sensitive site exploitation. In other words, we'd go in, we'd seize records and documents and computers and hard drives and flash drives and you name it, we're taking it. They're all to be analyzed. But in the old days is that that would happen. Then the information would be gathered up, sent in a big army where they would have some analysts of the Intel branch go through it. The information would be digested and then would reports would be made, and those would be filtered up through the Department of Army over to the Pentagon, or in the Pentagon, I guess, and then over to liaison, UP personnel and say the Department of Justice or the FBI or whatever it is, or wherever is going to get this information. And this information would then come back down through the channels of the Department of Justice or the FBI, all the way down to the case squad in Washington, DC to run down this phone number. Well, that takes months for that to happen. So and every time that every time you go through all these layers of bureaucracy, things get condensed, things get streamlined, and you lose the gist of the actual information. And it comes out at the other end, you know, it doesn't mean exactly the same thing as when it was first recovered. So those types of things are what we were there to do. And that was something that the Army learned from what we taught basically the Army how to do this. Basically, we're teaching the Army how to hit a place and do a crime scene. And they learned very fast. And eventually, the FBI finally said after a few years of this, and having some very close calls and had some guys injured and that type of stuff, they said, you know what, we got too much money tied up in these agents. I think the Army and the Marine Corps and the SEALs or whatever, you know, whatever it is, I think these guys have got this down now and they can do it themselves. And that's basically how it happened. So in fact, the only people I think that, and I forget what year they stopped that, but it may have been after I retired in 2012, but the only people that went over on a semi-regular basis were the people who went over the very first time after 9-11, and that was our HRT. Our HRT guys, the hostage rescue team guys, they went over right after 9-11 and embedded with these units and were so successful, they just said, you know what, we're going to expand this field SWAT. And that's when, you know, guys like me got a chance to get, to have an opportunity, if you want to call it that, to go overseas. And it was totally voluntary. And, you know, personally, I looked at it as, you know, this is the biggest thing that ever happened in my lifetime in terms of threats to the United States. And I was too young to go to Vietnam, so therefore this is my opportunity to serve. So I raised my hand and went over. That's how I felt about it. And my wife was real happy with me, right? But she understood. And so I went over and I did my tour. And that's just the way it ended up. So it felt like I had to do it.

Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. And I could hear that from the beginning of your story, right? When you first enlisted in the armed forces. So again, kind of just trying to pay it forward. You mentioned that you had a six-month stint going undercover. How common is that for an agent to go undercover?

Donald Albracht:Fairly common if you are in the undercover ranks. I was kind of caught in between the old way of doing it and the new way of doing it. The old way of doing it was somebody would say, we need somebody undercover for this. Who wants to do it? And of course, you'd have to be a little bit crazy to do it. But this was a white collar case. There was no real element of danger that at least was apparent. And it was a public corruption type case. So I'm wearing a suit. I'm dealing with politicians and businessmen. There was no danger in it. So this was kind of a situation where a guy that was working a case said, I know a guy who would be good for this. And he recruited me out in New York City to come do it. And it's because we knew each other. And I went down and I had to go through a process. Basically, I was approved to do it, and that was that. And it turned out that the undercover case never really got off the ground. And they had to do it in a different way and approach it from a different angle. And the case, you know, was, well, it took a different path. But I was down there for six months. And, you know, left my family behind and assumed a new persona and did that, you know, for six months. And that was it. It was very, it was interesting. And I learned a lot, but it wasn't like I was undercover by drugs. That is something that, first of all, you need a lot of knowledge to do that. And I don't, I mean, first admit, two areas where I don't have a lot of knowledge is that is drug cases and organized crime cases. I have a smattering of knowledge, but because I've worked both cases on the periphery, but never really went into a complex drug investigation. So I was there making the arrest with the SWAT team. That's about as much as I got involved. But this case was different. It was a case where we had developed information that there was some political, public corruption on the part of some politicians, and we did that. And then we moved on. I came back to New York, and that's when I got on the Fugitive Squad in New York.

Dylan Carnahan:That's really interesting, especially the volunteer aspect, right? That's a very stressful position to be put in to volunteer to do that.

Donald Albracht:Well, I should add that that's what nowadays you have to be selected to be an undercover agent. And you have to go through a lot of training. It's very professionalized now. And you can only do it for so long, and you have to be evaluated all the time because we have a lot of problems with agents who go into deep cover. And whether it's a foreign counterintelligence investigation or a drug investigation or an organized crime, some of these guys have been under cover for years, and they have to keep evaluating to see if their mental health is still good. It takes a toll on you because you're basically living a lie. And some people can adapt to it, okay, and then turn on, turn off. But over time, some people, they kind of absorb the negative aspects of the undercover role, and they could turn out to be maybe commit crimes themselves or maybe have mental health breakdown or health issues or whatever, family problems, all kinds of things that can come out of these things. That's why they have to be monitored very closely. I did it for six months, white collar case, not a big deal. So it was that kind of how it is, but it's a lot different now.

Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, and I'm sure the agents are thankful for all those kind of measures being taken now. I got a couple of questions to you just kind of from an outsider's perspective, what you would say to them. So what is one misconception about the FBI that you'd like to address?

Donald Albracht:Well, you know, I would like to say, and given the recent news reports, is that we aren't all corrupt. Everyone I know, everyone they know, the rank and file agents are, you know, very hard core, hard charging, follow the Constitution, law abiding, do it by the rules. We have, we're an agency that has a lot of policies and rules and regulations, because there's a disaster behind every one of them, and that's why we have established these things. So when I look at what's going on in the news, and I'll just point fingers like this, Andrew McCabe, Peter Stroke, and people like that, okay, the things they did are totally illegal. They not only violate policy, but they committed crimes as well as far as I'm concerned. They should be in jail as far as I'm concerned, okay? Now among the FBI in history, have we had a few bad apples? Yes, we have. I've known a couple, okay? And I've seen what happens to them, and they were dealt with, and that's what the system provides for. You have rules and regulations, you have laws, you follow them, and if you don't, you're punished, period. In this case, you know, Comey, don't get me started on him. He came in and it wasn't, he was probably the worst actor of all the directors, but it started back with Louis Free. Not that he was corrupt, but the policies he put in place when he was director, and then Robert Mueller came along and amplified those policies and then put in additional bad policies and procedures and the way things were being operated. And then Comey came along and that was the disaster waiting to happen right there. And so Ray, the new director, Christopher Ray, I'm not 100% sure what his deal is. I'm not impressed. He doesn't strike me as being the guy that seems to be the one that's going to turn the FBI around. I know that a lot of reforms have been put in place. A lot of these people, all of these people, I should say, that have been found to have committed, been fractions of the policies and procedures, and then any of them that committed a crime have been fired. But the problem is that I think only one or two were actually prosecuted. And my fear is that there's others we don't know about. And it's the, quote unquote, deep state. It's the bureaucrat that feels like he's above the law. And sometimes these guys have, they're in every agency. In the FBI, I'd like to think we do a pretty good screening of these guys back when we conduct our background investigations and hire them. But you can't let politics, you know, intervene, and we're supposed to be apolitical. That's what, you know, Hoover, for all the faults that he had, one thing he was good at was getting the dirt on the politicians. And he would get the dirt on Democrats and get the dirt on Republicans. And that way, he could never, neither, none of them ever had a leg up on the FBI, so we could operate independently. And this has changed over the years. And I've seen it while I was out. DOJ has more and more control over us. And they're our parent agency. Okay, I understand that. But they're a political organization. They're appointed by a political appointee that comes and goes with the president, okay? So his loyalty should be to the Department of Justice and the rule of law, but I guarantee you, as we see now, it's not. It's to the occupant of the White House. And I speak of Merrick Garland, specifically. And there's been cases like that in the past. And I think that that's the problem, that we need to get away from DOJ. We got to stop letting these former AUSAs and US attorneys and people like that run our agency. We need to bring in, hire somebody from within or bring in somebody from the outside who's totally above reproach, like a military general or something like that. You know, just somebody that comes in who can run a large organization, doesn't need to know the nuts and bolts of how everything works. That's for us to handle. But we need a ethical and moral guidance at the very top that is independent from Department of Justice. They are corrupt, and I don't trust them as far as I can throw them. Now, there's a lot of good people in the Department of Justice. I've worked with them, the US. Attorney's offices and all the offices I've been in have been outstanding. But the US. Attorney is political. He's appointed. And they direct the investigations. They prioritize investigations. And most of the time, I work violent crime. Well, that's always a priority, OK? It may not be a national priority, but it's always a priority within the community because it affects everybody a lot, and everybody wants to see violent crime under control. Well, it's... But when you start to get into the political prosecutions of corruption and things like that, now you're seeing a more circumspect look at who, you know, how is this going to affect us? How is this going to affect the people I support? You know, how is this going to affect our agency? Things like that. There's a case to be made that a lot of people did not want to investigate Hillary Clinton because they thought she'd be the next president, and we would be in big trouble. Well, you can't think like that. And that is something that various people in government need to be independent from, and the only way you can do that is have people that are independent, independent minded. And another misconception I need to... I'm kind of going off tangent here, but if I just came to mind, I need to say it is one of the things, a very big misconception is that, like I said, the FBI, they must be totally correct. Well, no. If you stop and think about all the information that you've heard come to light the past, I don't know, eight years or wherever this has been going on, that information, and where do you think it came from? That came from FBI agents who see what's going on inside the agency, and they tell somebody. They have people in the media. We're not supposed to talk to the media, but when people are committing what we believe is corruption, then I would go against that policy and talk to a person I could trust in the media, or go to Congress and report this. We're duty bound to report corruption to our oversight committees in Congress. So this information has been filtering out into Congress, the media, that type of stuff. When you hear this stuff on TV, it's coming from somebody on the inside. That's the only way they could know. And that information tells Congress where to look when they do these oversight investigations. Or in the case of special counsel, all the people that work for the special counsel are FBI agents detailed to the special counsel. All the people who work on the investigations that are going on in Capitol Hill are FBI agents detailed to Capitol Hill. In fact, one of the plum assignments, and it's not easy, but it's a very prestigious assignment, is to volunteer to be, and then you have to be selected. You can volunteer, but then you must be selected to be an investigator on Capitol Hill. And I forget what the term is. It may be three years, something like that. But you literally turn in your FBI credentials, and you're issued new credentials, and you're still a federal employee, and nothing changes. You're still an 1811 investigator, and you are issued a set of credentials that are as a Capitol Hill investigator, and you conduct the investigation. You serve subpoenas. You interview witnesses. You do everything you would do as an FBI agent, but you do it for Capitol Hill, the Senate and the House of Representatives. So all these investigations are being done by FBI agents. So you can't say the entire agency is corrupt, because if that was the case, nothing would get done. What you have here is a few bad apples and upper management in the DC swamp that have been infected and need to be excised from the FBI body. And that's the bottom line. So that's a misconception that I think that needs to be straightened up. And I say that no one's more angry with the direction of the FBI over the past few years than I am. You know, I have seen it firsthand. And so it's just I need to point out to people, though, that we are not all corrupt, just like, you know, any other agency. But this what's going on in the FBI, by the way, is going on in every other single law enforcement agency in the federal government. I've talked to friends in the Marshals. I've talked to friends in Secret Service, talked to friends at ATF. It's all going on at the upper echelons of the federal law enforcement agencies. Why? Because they spent too much time in Washington, DC. If I was in charge, I would move every federal agency out to various cities across the United States and no one, there would be nothing left in Washington, DC, except the White House and the Capitol. All the agencies would be scattered around the United States where they have to live with the common folk out here. Okay? And maybe some of this influence would be tamped down. Because someone, in fact, my brother told me a long time ago, who was in the Secret Service, he said, money doesn't talk in DC. What talks in DC is proximity to power. Who has access? And when you're shoved down Kansas City, guess what? You don't have access to power. You're not there. You can pick up the phone, maybe. But that's about it. But you're not there, and you can't. And if you're not there, a lot is lost, which is on the telephone line. So it is something that trouble is, they socialize together out there. They go to all the same parties. I mean, they're all part of the elite. And I'm talking to the very highest levels. And these are the kind of people that you need to break up and scatter them around so they can't do this. They develop a group think. They believe, a lot of them, some might be actually corrupt. They're doing it to feather their bed. Get money, or get our bed. I'm not taking bribes. What they're doing is to land a nice retirement job. Because federal employees make a decent living, but not a great living. And you look at, as far as I'm concerned, the guys that work like a senior executive service, they make a darn good living. But when they can step out into the private sector, they can double their salary. And so those are what a lot of them are looking at. If I play ball here, I can maybe land myself a cushy job. Well, that's corruption. And so that stuff has to be dealt with. And it's as bad as it is in the FBI. It's the same in the military. All these generals, they all land themselves nice cushy jobs with defense contractors and think tanks and all that stuff. And they're talking heads for the media and all. You name it. Although that doesn't pay that much. Sometimes it doesn't pay at all. But it's different.

Dylan Carnahan:That's a really interesting perspective. And I appreciate your insider kind of thoughts there. And yeah, I would further highlight. Yeah, I like the pointing out. This information is being curated by the FBI. Some of the things have been divulged publicly.

Donald Albracht:Yeah, and that's just my knowledge of how the FBI operates. Those are facts. Insider information, I don't think I've reached that level because I don't know that much about what goes on inside the FBI. The FBI is very compartmentalized. It always has been. I didn't know what was going on on the squad next to me when I was in the office. I didn't need to know. Rarely would I would just come to unless you have to be sitting around talking, having a beer with a guy and he and say, what's going on? He goes, Hey, did you hear about this case? I'm working and blah, blah, blah. He doesn't give you details and kind of gives you a general idea. But that's that'd be the most I would ever go find out about something like that. And if it's a classified case, I'm not going to hear anything about it. And now that I'm retired, I'm even more in the dark. And none of us, all of us, we get together and have a beer and sit around talking. None of us know anything. Everybody goes, What do you hear? What do you hear? None of us hear anything. All we do is now we know what we read in the newspaper, the newspapers, but what we read online, you know, that's all that we know as much as the average citizen, although we pay attention to things that affect the FBI a lot more closely. So that's yeah.

Dylan Carnahan:So the average citizen, Don, based on all of your experiences working at the FBI and in the armed forces, what is the best advice you can give to the average citizen?

Donald Albracht:Well, first off, obey the law. And then whenever the law enforcement comes knocking at your door and you didn't call them, you should say, you should say nothing. You should say, well, I'd be happy to cooperate with whatever you want to talk to me about, but I want to speak to an attorney first, period, okay? And if they want to come in, say no, unless you have a warrant. If they have a warrant, that means they have legal justification to come in. But you don't have to talk to law enforcement. And I would have never said this 20 years ago. I would be, it wouldn't occur to me to say it. I would say, well, sure, you should talk to the police when they come, but not anymore. I don't, and this goes for all law enforcement, local, state, federal. When they come knocking at your door and they want to talk to you, you ask them what it's about. And if they won't tell you, then I'd say, never mind, I don't think I need to talk to you. I'll be talking to my attorney. I mean, it shouldn't take more than a couple of sentences for them to explain what this is all about. And then, even then, I wouldn't be so sure. I get to depend on what it was about if I would talk to somebody like that, because they record everything. Now, everything you say will be used against you. So there's no way I think I would talk to anyone in law enforcement unless I had talked to an attorney first. And then, yeah, I'd be more happy cooperate under with counsel representing me just because I don't. It's not that I don't. Well, I guess I don't trust them, but I don't know them. So why would I talk to somebody I don't know who has all that authority and power that can't help me? OK, if they think I'm a witness to a crime, well, that's one thing. I'll talk to the attorney. We'll get that ironed out and I'll give me information. But but I would not I would not talk to anybody in with a badge that got no way out. So it's just the way I'm sad to say that, but it is our Sixth Amendment right. And by golly, we've got to start exercising our rights.

Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, that's well said. You know, and I think as you pointed out, there is a power imbalance in these conversations with today's technology. You know that you got a body cam on your cot right there that's being recorded. So you better be, you know, very use good word choice and the stakes could be high potentially with whatever's occurring. So I think I think that's good advice. Don, thank you for sharing your knowledge and time today. This is an awesome conversation and I learned a lot about the work that you've done in the FBI.

Donald Albracht:Yeah, well, thanks for letting me vent a little bit. You know, I retired 2012, so I've been I've been away a long time and I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea. I love the FBI and I, you know, I love the people I work with and they were the best. And I, you know, like I said, once in a while, we're across a bad guy, but 99.9% of our outstanding people and I had a great career. I would do it all over. I would, I would, but law enforcement these days, I don't know. It's a dangerous job. I don't think you have the backing of the government when you when you go into law enforcement anymore, whether it's local, state or federal. And you have to have that. You have to have the backing of the government and more importantly, the backing backing of the citizens. So unless you have that, you should be really, you should really think twice about when you get it. You got to really want to get in law enforcement. It's a very, very difficult job. And there's a reason my hair is all white. Well, pardon me if it's red, but I was but there's an incredible amount of stress that goes with the job, not only on you, but your entire family. And, you know, but there were the rewards are also very, very high. So I don't want to give anybody an impression that that I have some kind of ax to grab the FBI don't. It's just that right is right and wrong is wrong. I've always felt that way. I've always worked my cases that way. And I try to live my life that way. And I'm not perfect, but that's the goal that, you know, I try to hold myself to the standard to hold myself to. And, you know, that's all that's all I can do. That's all I can do.

Dylan Carnahan:That wraps up our conversation with Don. We talked about how terrorist investigations are conducted, undercover experiences and the structure of the FBI. Go to this episode show notes to see any resources Don mentioned during our episode. And lastly, subscribe to the Simple Questions Podcast to get notified when our latest episodes are released. Thank you for listening. And remember to keep asking questions.