Earlier this year, Al Jazeera aired explosive hidden camera footage exposing the inner workings
of America's powerful National Rifle Association.
As part of the sting, it also got inside Australia's One Nation party, showing Pauline Hanson's
Chief of Staff and one of her Queensland MPs soliciting donations from the NRA on the promise
of working to soften Australia's gun laws.
The man at the centre of it was Rodger Muller, a pet food maker turned undercover operative
who posed as an Australian gun rights lobbyist.
Under the watchful eye of the head of Al Jazeera's investigative unit, Peter Charley, Roger Muller convinced
One Nation and US gun lobbyists that he was the real deal.
Tonight, in his first interview, he reveals how he did it.
Rodger Muller isn't who he claims to be. He's working undercover for me, Peter Charley.
Rodg, how are you going?
Mate, very interesting.
I'm a reporter from Al Jazeera's investigative unit. We created Gun Rights Australia as a
front in order to infiltrate the pro-gun lobby and understand how they operate.
They've come out with legislation that picks on farmers...
Gun crime has been decreasing at a steady rate.
In the meantime, keep following us on all our social media.
As Roger infiltrated the One Nation party, their leaders wanted him to
plan a trip to America to forge contacts with the NRA.
This was a deliberate set-up by the Qatari government under Al Jazeera.
He set these meetings up.
This is skulduggery at its worst, this is the very first time that Australia has witnessed
political interference from a foreign government.
Rodger, if I could start with you. Tell me about the day in late 2015 when you received
a phone call from Peter Charley, the head of the Al Jazeera investigative unit in Washington?
I was driving along in Nowra on the south coast and Pete called. I hadn't heard from
him for a couple of years. He started to talk about the project and, I pulled over.
I had him on hands free. I pulled over. I got my phone and googled him because I thought
he'd gone mad. (laughter)
So I googled him and saw that he'd taken up a role with Al Jazeera and we chatted and
he explained what he wanted to do with looking into finding out more about the inner workings
of the NRA. And I was quite interested in it myself and said, "Yeah, let's have a
chat", and so we did.
And what was your professional background? Did you have any experience in undercover
work, media, anything of that nature?
Not at all. I've run my own businesses my whole life and had a number of them. And when
Peter rang, I was in the middle of setting up a dog food business.
How did you know each other?
We used to live in the same neighbourhood in Sydney. I've known Rodger for 20 years
or more, I guess. We used to drink in the same coffee shop, and our kids got to know
each other, and...
And when I was looking for someone for this, I looked at a number of potential candidates.
But eventually I thought the best person I could think of was Rodger Muller, because
he ticked all the boxes. He's got the right temperament and seems to be the sort of guy
who can handle the pressure with a good sense of humour, and I think it was a good choice.
So what was your plan then, Peter? Once Rodger said OK, what was the plan with what you were
going to do with him?
Well, the first thing I needed to do was to bring Rodger up to speed with the handling
of guns and to make him a highly credible, believable pro-gun advocate. You know, it's
a tricky assignement and there are lots of potential pitfalls.
When Rodger was deployed into the offices of the NRA, he was by himself and really had
to sort of handle himself. So we just wanted to make sure he was ready for that. And that
took a little while to satisfy ourselves.
Well, I had one of the team from Al Jazeera here in Australia that we worked together
building the website, doing the videos, and doing the back story for the persona.
What did your family and friends think about what was going on?
Well, living in a small community, there's of course the usual gossip and what have you,
and one or two people saw the website and then all of a sudden the phone went crazy.
So it was quite difficult because there really wasn't anybody that I could tell what I was
doing. So I got quite a lot of negative feedback. Some of them have come back and said 'sorry'.
And you know, I play in the local tennis comp and there was a lot of chit-chat over drinks
after tennis, and just recently, they were all like, "We thought you'd gone crazy". (laughs)
Did you have any moments in this planning phase of it where you thought, "Oh Jeez, I
hope I haven't got in over my head here"?
I think it was the first trip to Washington, I did a gun safety course, which was also
about concealed carry licensing.
And the gentleman running the course is an ex-policeman and he'd rented a lawyer's office
for the weekend. And we were sat in a lawyer's boardroom with about a dozen people from all
sorts of walks of life.
And he said "Alright everyone, bring out your guns", and everyone pulled out a gun from
somewhere, from, you know, all over, concealed positions and put them on the board room table.
And I just basically shrunk into the chair with sort of a dozen guns presented in front
of me, not coming from a gun culture.
Do you remember the occasion where you had to go and use this assumed identity for real?
Well, the first time was just doing some videos for the website here.
But in America, the first few meetings that we had with NRA people and you know, the Congressional
Sportsman's Association were quite difficult, because the fear of being caught...
We had, at every time that we had a meeting, we'd go there the day before, have a look
at possible exits and what have you, and the security level and what we thought would happen.
So I was always confident that I had someone there from the team. But if I got caught,
I was the one getting caught.
So yes, there was a lot of anxiety there and fear but as time went on, I got more and more
used to the cameras and that people weren't picking them up.
So you trust them more and more as time goes on.
In some meetings, the bigger meetings, it would feel like you had an anaconda crushing
your chest, it was that bad.
Rodger, you are not a robot, obviously, you're a human, so you have to form relationships
with people as part of what goes on.
How did, over time, you feel about the One Nation people you were dealing with? How did
you feel when you knew it was going to come out and they were going to be crushed by it,
for lack of a better word?
How did all that play out for you?
Oh, well it's hard. And at the end of the day, nearly everybody that I met throughout
the project were quite nice people. And you do form a bond, because that's part of the
job and just I think human nature.
So yes, it was a difficult thing to watch the process and you know, the NRA people,
they're protecting what they believe is the right laws in America, being the second amendment,
and the One Nation guys are doing what they think is best for the country.
What I've learnt, as a person - because before this, I was just an average person and I've
learnt a lot through this project.
What the main thing I've learnt is, is how fragile the Australian democracy can be and
how easily it can be affected.
I just think that it's something as an Australian that you take for granted, and it's something
I'll be talking to my kids about, protecting the way Australia lives and how we are.
Peter, some people raised questions about the ethics of planting somebody like Rodger
in an investigation, posing as somebody he's not.
What do you say about that?
I'm quite comfortable with the way we handled it.
I think a degree of subterfuge is the only way we could have penetrated the NRA.
There was certainly no way they were going to give true unguarded points of view to us if we
knocked on the door and said, "Hello, we are from Al Jazeera. Can we ask you your view
of mass killings"?
Or "Do you seek to influence governments?", "Do you have any contact with other people
around the world where you're trying to manipulate public opinion?"
I think the only way to really get deeply into that was to utilise subterfuge.
And I'm quite comfortable with that.
On the point of foreign interference, one of the criticisms One Nation raised was that
Al Jazeera was acting as an agent of foreign influence in Australia's democracy.
What is your response to that?
We did not seek to influence the election or democracy.
We were simply revealing what we found, and any claims that Rodger or I were acting on
behalf of a foreign government is ludicrous.
Rodger, what does it feel like being back in normal life now after several years of this?
There are moments, you know, the adrenaline and the hectic nature of the job, it's exhilarating.
And you do enjoy it, and because of the... You know, there are so many moving parts.
And you're worried, you're scared, you're frustrated, you're all sorts of things and
then you do come back to a normal life.
And I was saying to the guys, quite often there would be one day I'm undercover meeting
all sorts of fairly influential, important people; the next I'm picking up bags of dog
food and putting them in the van to go and deliver them.
So it was really quite strange.
And during the process, because you start to believe what you are saying, eventually,
and alright I did struggle. And I went and saw a psychologist and was explaining to her
what I was doing, which helped.
I had a number of sessions and it really did help to put the job and myself in two totally
different buckets. It took two or three sessions for me to convince her that I was telling
the truth. (laughs)
But eventually she believed me and yes, we got through it.
Your initial diagnosis was probably something quite different!
Yeah, absolutely! But people tell you, they say "Tell us about it!"
And sometimes you are like, "What? What are you talking about?" Because it did become
part of my life and quite normal.
So yeah, and it's good to tell a story and something not many people get to experience.
Thank you very much to both of you.
Thanks, Leigh