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Bryan Fogel (2021) - Exposing Russia's Doping Programme · The Joe Rogan Recap

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. Great to be back.
• 0:02
  Today we're diving deep into Joe Rogan Experience episode hashtag
• 0:06
  1592. This one features Brian Fogle,
• 0:10
  you know, the director behind the Oscar winning documentary
• 0:13
  Icarus. Yes, a really significant
• 0:15
  episode. Totally.
• 0:16
  Our mission today is to unpack the key insights, some
• 0:19
  surprising details around the whole Russian doping scandal in
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  sports that was the heart of Icarus, and then we're going to
• 0:26
  shift gears. Right to explore the the pretty
• 0:29
  chilling story behind Fogle's follow up film The Dissident.
• 0:31
  Exactly which covers the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
• 0:35
  And for this, we're mainly drawing on excerpts from the
• 0:38
  official JRE podcast transcript itself.
• 0:40
  It was a long conversation. It really was, and Fogle
• 0:43
  actually kicks off the discussion talking about Jordan
• 0:45
  Burroughs, the Olympic gold medalist wrestler.
• 0:48
  Yeah, Burroughs apparently found Icarus incredibly disturbing,
• 0:52
  and you can see why, right? Absolutely.
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  As someone competing at that level, potentially against
• 0:57
  Russian athletes who might have been doping, it must have hit
• 1:00
  very close to home. Exactly, it probably confirmed a
• 1:03
  lot of suspicions athletes like him might have had.
• 1:05
  It had a real personal impact you.
• 1:07
  Know yeah, you really feel that resonance and it just
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  underscores the huge shadow that state sponsored doping the stuff
• 1:14
  Icarus exposed still casts Russia's faced some pretty major
• 1:18
  fallout from this, haven't they? Oh, definitely on the world
• 1:21
  stage, yeah. If you look at the official
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  sanctions, the IOC, the International Olympic Committee,
• 1:27
  banned Russia from flying its flag at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
• 1:30
  Which ended up being in 2021 because of, well, everything.
• 1:34
  Right, right, 2021. And also for the upcoming 2024
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  Paris Games. That was a direct hit, a
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  consequence of the systemic doping Icarus really brought
• 1:43
  into the light. But it wasn't exactly
• 1:45
  straightforward, was it? The the ban I mean.
• 1:47
  No, not really. There was this whole saga with
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  the limbs data. The limbs data break that down a
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  bit. What is limbs?
• 1:53
  OK, so LIMBS stands for Laboratory Information
• 1:56
  Management System. Basically it's the digital
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  database, the record keeping for all the doping samples, the
• 2:01
  tests, the results. Got it.
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  So super crucial for anti doping.
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  Absolutely crucial and Russia as a condition for getting back in
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  good standing had to hand over this data completely
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  unmanipulated and they. Didn't initially.
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  They failed to, yeah. Then when they finally did
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  submit something, WADA, the World Anti Doping Agency, found
• 2:22
  it was clearly messed with. Tamered.
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  How did they? Know.
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  Well, WADA apparently already had a copy of the original
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  untamered data, likely from Rawchenkov himself, so they
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  could see the manipulation. And the manipulated version
• 2:34
  tried to pin the blame on Rochenkov.
• 2:36
  Exactly. They tried to frame Grigori
• 2:39
  Rochenkov, the whistleblower from Icarus, make it look like
• 2:42
  he was involved in bribery, money laundering, things like
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  that. Wow.
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  So WADA calls them out, imposes another ban.
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  Four years initially. Initially, yes, but then we went
• 2:53
  to the Court of Arbitration for Sport CAS.
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  And they changed it. They did.
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  They reduced the ban from four years down to 2.
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  And maybe the most controversial part, they created this
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  loophole. The loophole allowing some
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  Russian athletes to compete. Yeah, athletes who hadn't
• 3:08
  personally tested positive could still compete, just not out of
• 3:11
  the Russian flag under a neutral banner, Which?
• 3:14
  As Fogel points out on the show, seems kind of problematic given
• 3:17
  what Icarus showed. Exactly.
• 3:19
  The film detailed urine swapping, breaking into
• 3:22
  supposedly secure bottles. Yeah.
• 3:24
  Can you really know who was clean back then?
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  Right. The whole system seemed
• 3:28
  compromised. It casts such a long shadow.
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  It really does. It wasn't just individuals
• 3:33
  cheating, it was orchestrated from the top down.
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  Makes verifying old results incredibly difficult.
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  So the flag is banned, but many athletes are still there.
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  It raises questions about how effective these sanctions really
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  are. For sure.
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  And think about Grigory Rodchenkov, the man at the
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  center of it all. His life is completely changed.
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  What's the situation now? Fogel talked about it, didn't
• 3:54
  he? Yeah, it's pretty sobering.
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  He was granted asylum in the US, but he lives basically in hiding
• 4:00
  under protection. Because he fears for his life.
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  Very real fears, yeah. Constant threat of
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  assassination. He exposed so much, made
• 4:08
  powerful enemies. And Russia's response wasn't
• 4:10
  exactly subtle, was it? Not at all.
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  Sounds like something from a spy movie.
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  On the day of his US asylum hearing, Russia filed drug
• 4:17
  trafficking charges against him back home.
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  The timing seems. Deliberate.
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  Extremely, Fogle suggests. It points to maybe a leak, a
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  mole, someone inside the US system feeding information back
• 4:29
  to Russia. That's chilling.
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  And his family in Russia. They face repercussions too.
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  Assets frozen, interrogations, passports confiscated for a
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  time. It's textbook pressure tactics.
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  It really paints a picture of a state with a long memory willing
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  to reach across borders years later.
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  Fogel mentioned other cases too, right?
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  Yeah, he draws parallels. The poisoning of Sergei Skripal
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  in the UK, Alexander Litvinenko poisoned in London years after
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  he fled, even a case involving a former gas exec in Ukraine years
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  after alleged dealings. It shows a pattern of long term
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  retribution. A willingness to act no matter
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  how much time has passed. And it's not just whistleblowers
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  like Rod Chenkov. He mentioned Bill Browder, too.
• 5:09
  Right Bill Browder. He fought for the Magnitsky Act
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  after his lawyer, SER Guy Magnitsky, exposed massive
• 5:15
  Russian corruption and then died in prison.
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  The Magnitsky Act That's the one allowing sanctions on
• 5:20
  individuals for human rights abuses.
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  Exactly. Asset freezes, visa bans, and
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  Browder himself is reportedly still considered a target high
• 5:29
  on a potential kill list. It shows the risk anyone takes
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  challenging these interests. It's hard to fathom living under
• 5:35
  that kind of constant threat, yet Fogle describes Rochenkov as
• 5:39
  having a surprisingly lighthearted side.
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  Yeah, despite everything, Fogle calls him a goof, An incredible
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  optimist. It sounds like maybe a coping
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  mechanism. Must be to maintain any sense of
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  normalcy under that pressure. Incredible inner strength.
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  Absolutely. Which kind of brings us back to
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  how this whole thing started. Fogle's original idea for
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  Icarus. Right, it wasn't initially about
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  uncovering a massive state sponsored doping ring, was it?
• 6:05
  No, not at all. Fogle just wanted to see if he
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  could dope as an amateur cyclist and get away with it.
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  Beat the testing system. So he starts looking for
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  experts. And somehow gets connected with
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  Grigori Rochenkov, who unbelievably was the head of the
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  Moscow anti doping lab at the time.
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  The head. Of the lab and Rochenkov just
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  agreed to help him cheat. Pretty much, yeah.
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  And that was a moment Fogle realized this wasn't just about
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  loopholes. Rochenkov's willingness to help
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  him cheat pointed to something far bigger, far more systemic.
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  In a 2015 Maladi report drops. Right, that report identified
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  this huge state sponsored doping system in Russian athletics and
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  it pointed fingers right at Rochenkov as a key figure.
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  So the guy is supposed to stop doping was actually facilitating
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  it? The irony's thick.
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  Yeah, the Moscow lab gets shut down and suddenly Rochenkov
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  becomes the scapegoat within Russia.
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  Things got dangerous for him fast.
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  And that's when Fogle helped him get out.
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  Yeah, Fogle played a direct role in helping Rojenkov escape
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  Russia and get to the US. That escape is a major part of
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  the Icarus documentary itself. It was essential for Rojenkov to
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  tell his full story. And the impact of Icarus was
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  massive. The IOC even cited it when
• 7:13
  banning Russia. Undeniable impact.
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  And interestingly, Fogle mentioned it kind of changed the
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  conversation around Lance Armstrong too.
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  Well seen the scale of the Russian system, how
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  sophisticated the cheating was, maybe made people think
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  differently about Armstrong if everyone was potentially
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  cheating at that level and the system was so flawed it puts his
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  case in a different context perhaps.
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  Makes sense. Less about 1 bad apple, more
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  about a rotten system. Exactly.
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  Did Rod Chinkoff mention any sports Russia didn't heavily
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  dope? Apparently, figure skating was
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  one. The concern was that performance
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  enhancers might actually mess with the balance the fine motors
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  skills. Needed.
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  That's surprising. Yeah, but then Fogle froze in
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  that maybe even a sport like curling saw doping, which
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  suggests just how widespread it might have been.
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  Curling, Wow and the mentality behind it all.
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  Fogel described it as less about just cheating, more like a game.
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  Sort of like trying to out cheat everyone else because they
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  assumed everyone else was cheating to a kind of survival
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  mechanism. Almost seeing international
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  sport as warfare by other means. Fogel even got a taste of
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  Russian surveillance himself, doesn't he?
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  Yeah, a weird incident where a Russian friend of his was
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  stopped by authorities and shown a photo of Fogel suggests the
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  FSB was keeping tabs even after the film came out.
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  And Putin's reaction to all this?
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  Oh, Putin publicly claimed Richenkov was working for the
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  CIA, that the whole scandal was AUS plot to undermine him and
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  interfere in Russian elections. Deflecting blame, creating a
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  counter narrative. Standard playbook?
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  Maybe, but Icarus reached a huge audience anyway, right on
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  Netflix. Massive, reportedly something
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  like 700 million views globally just shows the power of those
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  streaming platforms. There was even this wild story
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  from the 1988 Seoul Olympics mentioned.
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  Oh yeah, the cruise ship. The allegation was that Russia
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  parked a passenger cruise ship nearby, supposedly for safety,
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  but it actually housed athletes and maybe even a secret doping
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  lab, keeping them away from the Olympic Village testing.
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  If true, that's incredibly elaborate.
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  Just shows the lengths they might have gone to.
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  For sure, And the problems didn't just vanish after Icarus
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  Fogel mentioned Yuri Ganos. The head of Rosada, the Russian
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  anti doping agency. Yeah, Ganos seemed to genuinely
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  want reform. Publicly stated that problems
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  persisted, but eventually he was pressured, forced to resign.
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  Suggests the system is very resistant to real change.
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  OK, so Icarus opens up this whole world of state sponsored
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  cheating, but Fogle's next film, The Dissident, that takes us
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  somewhere even darker. Yeah, a completely different but
• 9:48
  equally disturbing territory. The assassination of Jamal
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  Khashoggi. Khashoggi, the Washington Post
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  journalist He had ties to the Saudi royal family for a long.
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  Time, right? He did, yeah.
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  Worked within the system for years, which makes his later
• 10:01
  criticism even more significant. He became increasingly critical
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  of the direction Saudi Arabia was heading under Mohammed bin
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  Salman MBS. Exactly.
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  He was initially supportive but grew concerned about the
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  crackdown on any kind of dissent, arrests of activists,
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  intellectuals. Even celebrities, apparently, if
• 10:17
  they weren't constantly praising MBS and the control over social
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  media like Twitter. Huge focus on controlling the
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  narrative online government trolls monitoring intimidation
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  became a really repressive environment.
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  So Khashoggi goes into self exile, ends up in the US writing
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  for the Washington Post. And his columns were sharp,
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  criticizing MBS, his actions, the Saudi relationship with the
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  Trump administration. He was using his platform,
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  taking a big risk. He was even and working with
• 10:45
  another dissident, Omar Abdul Aziz, trying to push back
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  against the online propaganda. Yeah, trying to organize a kind
• 10:52
  of counter movement on Twitter, but their communications were
• 10:55
  compromised. Pegasus, spyware, incredibly
• 10:59
  sophisticated stuff, allegedly from Israeli company.
• 11:02
  It basically gives attackers full access to your phone,
• 11:05
  messages, calls, camera, mic, everything.
• 11:08
  So the Saudis likely knew exactly what they were planning.
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  It seems highly probable, which leads us to what happened inside
• 11:14
  the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The details are just horrific.
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  Truly stomach churning. Reports say he was ambushed,
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  strangled and then dismembered with a bone saw brought in by a
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  Saudi forensic examiner. Dismembered while possibly still
• 11:26
  alive. That's what some reports suggest
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  is premeditated, brutal, unbelievable cruelty.
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  And the intelligence community, CIA, British, French, Turkish,
• 11:39
  they all seem pretty confident about who ordered it.
• 11:42
  Yeah, the consensus is high confidence that MBS himself
• 11:45
  ordered the killing. In an absolute monarchy like
• 11:48
  that, an operation this complex involving high level officials,
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  it's almost inconceivable it happened without his own K.
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  Turkish intelligence got audio recordings from inside the
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  consulate, didn't they? They did, and the transcripts
• 12:01
  reportedly contained chilling details, the killers making
• 12:04
  jokes while discussing the dismemberment.
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  Jokes. Unbelievable.
• 12:08
  Shows a complete lack of humanity and they even used a
• 12:10
  body double. Right.
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  Dress someone in Khashoggi's clothes to walk out.
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  Make it look like he left OK? A calculated deception trying to
• 12:17
  create a false trail right from the start.
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  There's also that detail about part of the audio missing the
• 12:22
  part covering the actual dismemberment.
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  Yeah, and the speculation Fogle mentions is disturbing.
• 12:27
  The theory is that the room used for the killing might have been
• 12:30
  the only one with a secure line back to Riyadh.
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  So they might have recorded it as proof.
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  Possibly proof of death and sent directly to MBS or his inner
• 12:41
  circle. It's a horrifying thought.
• 12:43
  And the disposal of the body equally gruesome.
• 12:46
  Reports suggest his remains were burned in a tandoori oven at the
• 12:49
  consul general's home. They even ordered large amounts
• 12:53
  of meat, supposedly to mask the smell.
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  Just trying to erase every trace.
• 12:57
  There was also something about keeping his hands.
• 12:59
  Yeah, a grim detail about preserving the hands, presumably
• 13:03
  for fingerprint confirmation, again pointing to meticulous, if
• 13:07
  barbaric planning. The international reaction was
• 13:10
  strong, but the response from the Trump administration at the
• 13:12
  time was. Highly controversial, yeah.
• 13:14
  The administration seemed to go out of its way to protect MBS.
• 13:18
  Trump publicly downplayed the CIA's findings.
• 13:20
  Didn't he veto congressional efforts to block arms sales and
• 13:23
  impose sanctions? He did vetoed bipartisan
• 13:26
  efforts. And then there was this infamous
• 13:27
  quote about having saved his ass, referring to MBS.
• 13:30
  Which drew condemnation even from Republicans, right?
• 13:33
  Like Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Absolutely.
• 13:36
  Figures across the political spectrum were appalled,
• 13:39
  expressing deep concerns about the US Saudi relationship and
• 13:43
  the message being sent. But Trump, stuck to his guns,
• 13:46
  dismissed the CIA assessment. He did.
• 13:48
  Publicly questioning his own intelligence agencies raised a
• 13:51
  lot of questions about priorities, geopolitical
• 13:53
  strategy versus human rights and accountability.
• 13:56
  Khashoggi fiance Hatis Sengis. She's still fighting for
• 14:00
  justice, isn't she? Tirelessly, she reportedly even
• 14:04
  submitted intercepted phone calls to the Biden
• 14:06
  administration, calls she believes prove MBBS ordered the
• 14:10
  murder. And before Khashoggi was killed,
• 14:12
  there were attempts to get Omar Abdulaziz, the other distant.
• 14:15
  Reports suggest attempts to rendition him, basically kidnap
• 14:19
  him from Canada back to Saudi Arabia, shows the lengths they
• 14:22
  were apparently willing to go to silence critics abroad.
• 14:25
  Then there was that huge arms sale to Saudi Arabia right near
• 14:28
  the end of Trump's presidency. Yeah, a $500 million deal
• 14:31
  reported by The New York Times finalized in the last weeks,
• 14:35
  further cementing that relationship despite everything.
• 14:37
  And wasn't there some complex situation involving Tarr, Jared
• 14:41
  Kushner's family business and Saudi Arabia lifting its
• 14:45
  blockade? Yes, reports surfaced about a
• 14:48
  Qatari entity potentially bailing out a troubled Kushner
• 14:51
  property on Park Ave. around the same time Saudi Arabia suddenly
• 14:56
  ended its long blockade of Qatar.
• 14:58
  The timing certainly raises eyebrows, suggests a tangle of
• 15:02
  financial and political interests.
• 15:03
  It definitely fueled questions about potential quid pro quos
• 15:07
  and the influence of private business on foreign policy.
• 15:10
  So for Brian Fogle, making the dissident must have felt very
• 15:13
  different after the success of Icarus.
• 15:15
  You'd think so. He had this huge hit with
• 15:17
  Icarus, won an Oscar. He talked about feeling a sort
• 15:21
  of moral obligation after that to tackle another really
• 15:24
  important challenging story. But getting the dissident scene
• 15:27
  with a whole other battle? The huge struggle?
• 15:29
  Yeah. Despite great reviews, Fogle's
• 15:31
  track record, major streaming platforms reportedly turned it
• 15:34
  down. Netflix.
• 15:35
  Amazon Prime's main subscription service.
• 15:37
  Others. Why?
• 15:38
  What was the reasoning the. Speculation and what Fogle
• 15:41
  himself suggests is fear fear of upsetting Saudi Arabia,
• 15:46
  jeopardizing business deals, investments in the region.
• 15:49
  It's. Not like financial interest
• 15:50
  possibly outweighed the story itself.
• 15:52
  Is that fair? That's certainly the concern
• 15:54
  raised. Are powerful states now
• 15:57
  influencing what content gets distributed even in Western
• 16:00
  markets simply through economic pressure?
• 16:03
  It's a serious question about potential soft censorship.
• 16:05
  And Netflix had that history with Hassan Minhaj's show right
• 16:09
  pulling an episode critical of MBS in Saudi Arabia.
• 16:11
  Exactly. They argued they were following
• 16:13
  local laws but also stated they're an entertainment
• 16:15
  company, not necessarily a truth to power outlet.
• 16:19
  That precedent looms large here. So the Dissident ended up
• 16:23
  available mostly as a rental on VOD platforms.
• 16:26
  Yeah, video on demand, which is great, it's out there, but it
• 16:29
  just doesn't have the same reach, the same potential
• 16:32
  audience as being on a major subscription streamer like
• 16:35
  Icarus was. Fogle must have been
• 16:36
  disappointed. You expressed that, yeah,
• 16:38
  disappointment that business considerations seem to block a
• 16:41
  wider audience from seeing a story about fundamental human
• 16:44
  rights. But he's sticking with it, still
• 16:46
  committed to these kinds of films.
• 16:48
  Seems like it. And Heti Singhi's Khashoggi's
• 16:51
  fiance. She publicly thanked Fogel,
• 16:54
  expressed pride in the film and reaffirmed her fight for justice
• 16:57
  despite all the trauma. Her strength is incredible.
• 17:00
  Truly wow. When you step back and look at
• 17:03
  both stories Fogel covered in this JRE episode.
• 17:06
  The systemic doping, the cold blooded murder of a journalist,
• 17:10
  the geopolitical maneuvering. It's just.
• 17:14
  Staggering, it really is. The layers are incredible and
• 17:17
  disturbing. It shows how interconnected
• 17:18
  these worlds of power, politics, sport and finance can be.
• 17:22
  And it really highlights the power of documentary film to
• 17:25
  expose these things, but also the huge challenges in getting
• 17:28
  these truths out there. Absolutely.
• 17:30
  It forces us to think about the responsibilities of these
• 17:32
  massive media platforms. We're faced with human rights
• 17:35
  abuses versus potentially lucrative business deals.
• 17:38
  Where do their priorities lie? What should they be?
• 17:41
  It's a tough question. You have to respect Vogel's
• 17:43
  commitment, though. Taking on these powerful
• 17:45
  subjects involves real risk. Yeah, no doubt personal and
• 17:48
  professional risks. It underscores how vital
• 17:51
  independent voices are. Definitely.
• 17:54
  So if you, the listener want to explore this further, The
• 17:57
  Dissident is available on various VOD platforms.
• 18:00
  It sounds like essential viewing.
• 18:02
  And maybe consider supporting organizations that fight for
• 18:05
  human rights and press freedom. They're doing crucial work.
• 18:08
  Good point. And if you want to follow Brian
• 18:09
  Fogle, his Twitter and Instagram are both at Brian Fogle.
• 18:13
  The film's website isthedissident.com.
• 18:16
  That's Brian NFOGLE. Right.
• 18:21
  So a final thought to leave people with maybe in this
• 18:24
  globalized world, with economies and politics all tangled up, how
• 18:27
  do we make sure truth and justice don't get pushed aside
• 18:30
  for profit or political convenience?
• 18:32
  That's the question, isn't it? How do we protect those values
• 18:35
  when they conflict with powerful interests, Something Fogle's
• 18:38
  work really makes you grapple with?