Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : Ten Years of US in Ukraine

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

Aaron Maté : Ten Years of US in UkraineSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, May 1st, 2024. Aaron Matei joins us now. Aaron, thank you, my dear friend. Thank you for your time today. Speaking about time, you have just produced a dissertation, well, it's about 20 or 25 pages long, which is available at Real Clear Investigations on what 10 years of U.S. meddling in Ukraine have wrought, an exhaustively researched, thoroughly presented, brilliantly articulated argument. And there's a spoiler alert in the title, but I'll let you deal with the spoiler alert. What have 10 years of U.S. meddling in Ukraine brought? Well, according to Joe Biden, and really at this point, the bipartisan establishment,

because House Speaker Mike Johnson just helped push through the $61 billion measure to prolong the proxy war that Joe Biden and his team began. Ukraine's on the front lines of democracy. That's been the talking point from Joe Biden, that if we don't help Ukraine, then democracy will lose. It'll be a victory for autocratic forces everywhere. What I put out in the piece is simply looking back at the actual record of the last 10 years. The U.S. role in Ukraine has undermined democracy, not only in Ukraine, but also in the U.S., because after serving on the front lines of a really dangerous proxy war inside Ukraine, which has undermined Ukrainian democracy, starting with the overthrow of its government in February 2014, backed by the US, the Obama-Biden

administration. Ukraine's also been used to meddle in US politics in really consequential ways, factoring heavily in the 2016 campaign, in the first impeachment of Donald Trump, and then even in 2020 as well. And it probably stands to factor in 2020 for campaign too. And I go through just some of the key details in all this, and it is a very, very long piece. But I have some extraordinary revelations, or I think some important revelations, which I can talk about, that come from a Ukrainian insider who's seen all this from the start, named Andrei Telechenko, who took part in the MADOM movement back when it began in late 2013, and then worked for the Ukrainian government after the coup that the U.S. backed, and then

worked for Blue Star Strategies, which is a Democratic Party-tied firm that worked with Burisma, which of course is the energy company that hired Hunter Biden, right after his father, Joe Biden, helped overthrow the government in Ukraine. So there's a whole lot to go through. But what I argue here is that rather than portraying Ukraine as being on the front lines of a democratic struggle, as is the standard narrative in the US, Ukraine's been used to undermine democracy in both countries, both in Washington and in Kiev. Give us the backstory, if you would. I know there's a tremendous amount of detail here, and some of the names are quite familiar to us. Vice President Biden, of course, CIA Director Brennan, Victoria Nuland, Barack Obama resisting the efforts of the

neocons around him to provide the type of weaponry and military support that Joe Biden has. But give us the thumbnail sketch starting in 2013, I guess. Well, you know, the experience of Obama really underscores a very common theme here, which is that it doesn't really matter. I mean, the whole story of Ukraine underscores that in both countries, whatever the elected president wants ultimately doesn't really matter. You had Obama actually being pretty tepid about waging a proxy war against Russia and Ukraine. He resisted efforts to arm Ukraine. He actually threw his support behind Angela Merkel as she negotiated the Minsk Two Accords. But right as Merkel was doing that, there was a meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in February 2015, right before the Minsk Two Accords were signed.

And the Minsk Two was the deal that was supposed to end the war on the Donbass that began after the U.S. backed a coup in February 2014, this war between Russian-backed rebels in the East and the U.S.-backed post-coup government. So as Angela Merkel is negotiating a peace deal, Victoria Nuland is meeting with John McCain, Mike Pompeo, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference at a luxury hotel. And she's saying, we're going to ignore the Minsk Accords, basically. She's saying this is an act of betrayal. John McCain is comparing Merkel to Chamberlain and saying all this is appeasement and Newland's saying we're going to keep flooding Ukraine with weapons no matter what happens with this peace deal what did the Minsk Accords uh just for the benefit of our audience that may not be

familiar with it what did they do in a nutshell and who were the agreeing parties so after you have the U.S backing a coup in February February 2014, and you asked me about that, so I'll go back to that in a second because I skipped over that part. But once there is that coup, you have a war breakout between Russian-backed Eastern Ukrainians who are opposed to this new government because they've not only overthrown their elected president, Yanukovych, but also one of their first moves is to try to ban the Russian language. And so people in Eastern Ukraine see all this as an assault on their very existence. So they take up arms with Russia's support. There's some fighting. Finally, in February 2015, you have

the Minsk Two Accords to end the fighting. And the basic bargain is these Eastern Ukrainians will get some limited autonomy, have their rights respected. They'll be able to speak Russian. There'll be no more attempts to ban their language. And they'll have some limited autonomy, the right to appoint their own judges and police forces, but they'll stay inside of Ukraine rather than separating. And in return, Russian forces that have gone there to aid them will withdraw along with their heavy weaponry, and there will be peace. That's the basic bargain. But Nuland, meanwhile, is saying, we're not going to respect these Minsk Accords. them will withdraw along with their heavy weaponry and there will be peace. That's the basic bargain. But Nuland, meanwhile, is saying, we're not going to respect these Minsk Accords. And she sides in doing so with the ultra-nationalists of Ukraine who also don't want the Minsk Accords because I

don't think they want these Russian-aligned Eastern Ukrainians in their country. And certainly they don't want anything that can respect their existence, respect their culture, because they're so devoted to their conception of Ukrainian nationalism. And that's, by the way, the same faction that Victoria Nuland and her allies in the Obama administration got behind when in February 2014, a year earlier, after weeks of protests on the Maidan that get increasingly violent against Yanukovych, there's a power sharing agreement brokered by the EU in a very similar situation. And again, the ultra-nationalists said, we're not going to accept that. We're not going to accept leaving Yanukovych in power. And after Yanukovych's forces pulled back under their terms of the deal, the ultra-nationalists took advantage, stormed the parliament,

pushed through a new government. And the US, even though they had welcomed that power sharing agreement brokered by the EU that would have left Yanukovych in power, they immediately forget all that and say, yes, this is great. We support the new government. So you have two incidents there, the coup of 2014 and the signing of the Minsk Accords, where you have a compromise reached, ultra-nationalists in Ukraine backed by neocons in Washington completely undermine it. In the case of the Minsk Accords, you have Victoria Nuland saying that she's going to undermine her own president, Barack Obama. Wow. Because Barack Obama, to his credit, did not want to be involved in supplying cash or military gear to whoever was running the government of Ukraine at the time. And that obviously was the people that

Mrs. Nuland chose. What is the right sector and what is Svoboda? Did Mrs. Nuland have her, did she align the American foreign policy establishment with the most right-wing, dangerous aspects of the groups competing for power in Ukraine? Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Yes, you did. One year before the Maidan protests break out, the European Parliament puts out a statement condemning Svoboda, this political party in Ukraine, calling them anti-Semitic, xenophobic, and saying that nobody should associate with them. That's the European Parliament's view. later, Victoria Nuland takes a different view because Svoboda is a part of this hardline contingent in the Maidan movement that, you know, whereas other people in the Maidan were

protesting peacefully, rallying against corruption because Yanukovych was corrupt and protesting his decision to delay a European association agreement because they were upset that they felt as if this would ruin their chances to align closely with the West. Svoboda is a part of a hardline faction that isn't just calling for closer ties with the West and protesting corruption. They want regime change. And when they're calling for regime change, they basically take advantage of the Maidan protests to push for that. And Newland and John McCain and Chris Murphy show their support by going to Kiev and they walk around with and they appear with the leader of Svoboda. One year after the European Parliament says, don't associate with these guys because

they're anti-Semitic and they're extremists. So John McCain and Chris Murphy, Senator Murphy from Connecticut, still Senator McCain, of course, has passed on. We're walking around Kiev arm in arm with Nazis. Yes, they were. And then you have that phone call where Victoria Nuland is talking about who should be in the new Ukrainian leadership. And even though she's hanging around with the leaders of Svoboda, she's saying, you know what, it's not a good idea for them to go into government. It's not a good idea. They're better on the outside. And I think what she meant by that is it wouldn't look good to have fascist neo-Nazis heading a new government. They're better on the outside where they can use their muscle to basically push through whatever they want and what the US wants. And that's why they settled on someone named

Yatsenyuk, who was more of a technocrat, even though he also had endorsed the violence. And a really interesting thing happens after the coup, which I have new details on in my article. So you have, after the coup, Russia seizes Crimea because they worry about this new coup government handing over their most important naval port to NATO. And Crimea has historically been a part of the Russian sphere. It was until it was transferred to Ukraine in the 1950s and a very controversial decision. So Russia seizes Crimea. And then you have this uprising in the Donbass, as he did in Crimea, he actually says the Donbass should be a part of Ukraine and there should be dialogue between the rebels and the new government. And in public, the Biden administration says the same thing, that we want dialogue, we want to resolve this peacefully. Well, in my article, I report that, in fact, behind the scenes, the U.S. was doing the exact opposite. And in mid-April 2014, John Brennan, who's then the head of the CIA, he goes to Kyiv for secret meetings with Ukrainian leaders. And it was supposed to be secret, but the Kremlin, which has a lot of informants inside Ukraine, outed Brennan's visit and said, they accused Brennan

of basically being there to encourage a Ukrainian assault on the Donbass, to basically start a new civil war inside the country. John Brennan denied this. He said, we're there for peace. I'm there just to talk to our partners. The Obama administration denied this. But I spoke to someone, Andrei Telechenko, who was serving as a Ukrainian official at the time, who was in the meeting with John Brennan, who was in the meeting with Brennan and Ukrainian officials. Also there was Jeffrey Piat, the US ambassador. And Telechenko told me that Brennan, contrary to what he was saying publicly, encouraged a Ukrainian military assault on the Donbass, said that Russia was behind all of this. You had to show them that they can't do this and we will

support you in this. So in public, the Obama administration was saying we support dialogue. In private, according to Telechenko, who was in the meeting, Brennan was saying, we support dialogue in private, according to Telchenko, who was in the meeting. Brennan was saying, go to war, we'll back you up. And did President Obama know what Brennan and Nuland were doing? You know, that's a great question. That's a fantastic question. Right after, a week after that Brennan meeting, there was an article in the New York Times that basically said, it was sourced to White House officials, and it said, we're not going to deal with Putin anymore. Obama has decided there's no chance of a constructive relationship with him. We're not going to deal with him, and we're going to be tough with him. And what it basically was, was a declaration of a new Cold War. Because what they were saying was, there's no chance of any kind of diplomacy with Putin as long as he's in

power. But then the article goes on to say that people inside the White House are frustrated with Obama because he's not being tough enough on Russia. So which is interesting. Simultaneously, they're saying that Obama's decided that he's not going to deal with Putin anymore. But then they're also saying that people inside the White House are mad at Obama because he's not being tough enough with Putin. So which is it? What I think that was, was officials in the White House, specifically Victoria Nuland, saying trying to basically lock Obama into a cold war without without him even knowing it, without him even saying it. To basically build up public pressure so that he'd be locked into this proxy war with Russia, whether he wanted it or not, because they're complaining about how tepid he was. So personally, if Obama had his way, I don't think he would have done all this, but it shows who really has power in Washington. Because as his own advisor, Derek Cholet said, this was a rare case inside the White House where

pretty much all of Obama's aides were against his policy. And ultimately who won? It was them, because they ended up fueling this proxy war. John Brennan encouraged Ukraine to fight the Eastern Ukrainians. That led to a civil war, which 14,000 people were killed. And yes, Obama dragged his feet, but ultimately Ukraine got the weapons. And when Trump took office, he was boxed in by Russiagate because he was being accused of being a Russian agent, which they used to basically get him to show his toughness on Russia by approving weapons that Obama wouldn't even send. So ultimately – Go ahead. Go ahead. approving weapons that Obama wouldn't even send. So ultimately, from both Obama to Trump,

whatever they personally wanted, it didn't matter because the neocons won. Did the Ukrainian intelligence community endeavor to help Mrs. Clinton in the race against Donald Trump in 2016? Yes, they did. And amazingly, even though that race is now eight years ago, we're still only learning critical details about it. First of all, if you read corporate media now, it's just an article of faith that if you say that Ukraine interfered in 2016 on behalf of Clinton, that that's a conspiracy theory. The Washington Post recently called that a smear spread by Russian intelligence.

It's not a smear. Ukrainian officials openly admitted at the time that they were trying to help Clinton. There's an article about it in the Financial Times where Ukrainian officials were openly saying, we are trying to help Clinton. And one of the ways they did that was by leaking a apparently fake ledger showing secret cash payments to Paul Manafort, who was then Trump's campaign manager, by Yanukovych's party. And the release of that so-called secret ledger prompted Manafort's resignation, even though Manafort denied any wrongdoing. But that was in the early stages of the collusion hoax by the Clinton campaign. And I think at that time, Trump didn't realize what was fully going on, and he didn't want the distraction of Paul Manafort in his business affairs so Manafort resigned and that likely

came from a fake ledger that was the result of Ukraine trying to produce dirt against the Trump campaign as they openly stated they wanted to do right so you have that you have Ukraine openly meddling there now we only recently learned eight years later that when, so when it comes to the other main Russiagate allegation, so you have collusion, right? That was one plank of the Russiagate scam. The other major plank of it was that Russia stole Democratic party emails to help Trump. And now we learn eight years later and buried in that recent article in the New York Times, which disclosed that there were 12 CIA bases inside Ukraine. And that same article, the CIA also discloses, oh yeah, by the way, that claim that Russia stole Democratic Party emails, we got a lot of that from Ukrainian

intelligence. Ukrainian intelligence, now we learn, played a major role in fingering Russia for the DNC hack. And now we're a bit removed from all that, but for people who recall that period, this was the issue that dominated US politics for years. Russia's alleged DNC email theft was deemed to be an act of war. That's why we couldn't get along with Russia. And that's why Trump was possibly a Russian agent because Russia had interfered on his behalf. And now we learned that the same government that the US helped install, that the US basically controlled because the CIA played a major role in running Ukrainian intelligence, that same government played a critical role not only in helping the collusion angle of the Russiagate scam by leaking the Manafort ledger,

but also by generating the foundational allegation, which started Russiagate, that Russia stole the emails. And we're only getting this eight years later. And by the way, what happened when Trump tried to ask Zelensky about that? He got impeached. He got impeached. Because if you look at that phone call, if you look at that phone call between him and Zelensky, which is held right after Robert Mueller had that terrible congressional appearance and Democrats are desperate to rebound from the failure of the Russiagate conspiracy theories. On that phone call, Trump's, it's widely thought that Trump mainly wanted Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. No. The first thing he wants Zelensky's help with is not the Bidens. It's investigating

Ukraine's role in the origins of Russiagate. So when he went there, he got impeached. So that's another example of also you cannot question the national security state and how Ukraine has been used to constantly interfere in US politics after we interfered in their country to begin with. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll transition to Gaza and what's happening on American college campuses. But first, a few words about gold. You all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital, but I'm also a customer, a very satisfied customer. About a year ago, I bought gold and it's now increased in value 23%. So $100 invested in gold a year ago is now worth $123.

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800-511-4620. Learjudgenap.com. Tell them the judge sent you. Does the federal government of the United States of America care about the freedom of speech on college campuses? Oh, obviously not. And this is bipartisan. The incitement of assaults on these peaceful protesters across the country from And amazingly, the violence against these protesters is unbelievable. I don't know if you've seen the footage coming out of UCLA. I did. But overnight, these pro-Israel mobs attack people. They launch fireworks into their encampment. And yet the media portrayals, there's clashes on both sides.

You wouldn't know who's committing the violence here. So no, we do not respect free speech. And we're showing that right now by tolerating the arrests and assaults on protesters on college campuses across the country. So mainstream media is portraying the demonstrators as anti-Israeli, even anti-Jewish, even though a lot of the demonstrators themselves are Jewish, anti-Semitic, a misnomer, but it's doing that. It's not portraying them as pro-Palestinian. It's almost like mainstream media and cable television are giving one version of this, and social media and what you can get on your mobile device are giving another version of this.

I don't think you and I could have this conversation at my former employer, Fox News, because they're part of mainstream media now, which is giving the government's version of this. But how dangerous is it when the government has its own version of events and uses force to silence those who offer an alternate view. Oh, it's extremely dangerous. It's the exact opposite of what a democracy should be. And that's why they're trying to control not only the rights of people to speak out on campuses, but also the information space.

They're trying to ban TikTok so that young people are denied a source of information that goes beyond the establishment guardrails. It's a very dangerous time. And I went to the encampment at UCLA the other day, and I was around some of these young people, and it's very inspiring to be there. These are peaceful people. It's very clear that they're there because they oppose a mass murder campaign by their government.

And this is their response, trying to take matters into their own hands, putting their bodies on the line. I think they're all heroes. And the way they're being vilified in the media, and now they're being rounded up, arrested, assaulted, as is happening in several cases. It's just abhorrent. We ran a clip, I don't know if you saw it, of a female economics professor at Emory University being pounded. We couldn't run the video. It was too repellent, but we did run the still. She's walking across the campus and she sees one of her students zip-tied and on his belly on the ground. She goes over to ask the student if he's all right,

and the police tackle her. The guy tackling her is about three times her size. He has sergeant stripes on, telling us he's an experienced cop. He's not a rookie making an erroneous judgment call. I can't imagine the cop will be prosecuted. The poor woman had her head smashed into the cement, and she screamed, what are you doing to me? I'm a professor looking after one of my students and the students come by to shout and scream at him. And of course, he only becomes more violent. in Texas ranges on horseback to rough up peaceful demonstrators at the University of Texas in Austin. The mayor of New York sent in police dressed in SWAT gear and with automatic weapons to attack students at Columbia University at two o'clock in the morning. I don't know how this ends, Aaron. I don't either. It's a scary time. And it's completely normalized. I was watching CNN today, Dana Bash, an anchor, and she basically was comparing these student protesters to Nazis

in 1930s Germany. And they talk about Jewish students feeling unsafe. They never talk about all the Jewish students who are. They never talk about all the Jewish students who are there at these protests in solidarity with Palestinians and they're being attacked. It's like they don't exist. It's very Orwellian and both parties are in complete lockstep on this, except for at the margins. There are some people, for example, Thomas Massey, a Republican, he's been very outspoken in condemning the crackdown on free speech and the false attempt to uh conflate criticism of israel with anti-semitism but these are at the margins of these parties and you mentioned you mentioned tom cotton uh the senator from arkansas he

actually encouraged violence actually encouraged violence protecteded speech But encouraging violence Nevertheless And as I may have said earlier One of my One of my venues refused to publish My piece Which comes out today We have it at judsnap.com

On whatever happened To the freedom of speech I know Dana Bash This is not the Dana Bash. I know Dana Bash. This is not the Dana Bash that I know, but I'm sure her bosses are telling her that she has to take this approach. It's simply reprehensible. I suppose this will die down

because this is exam and graduation time and the students basically will be home for the summer. Who knows what the world will be like? Maybe Netanyahu will be in jail in the fall. I don't know. I suppose the American government will pressure the ICC, even though we're not a part of the International Criminal Court, not to indict him, even though we applauded the, because Israel's not a part, even though we applauded the indictment of Putin, even though Russia's not a part to the ICC. Is there any consistency in what the American government does? And I got to throw this in. All these universities, particularly the great research universities,

Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, UCLA, CCNY in Manhattan, get so much money from the federal government in return for which they agree in writing to respect the freedom of speech. And the federal government doesn't give a damn about enforcing that side of the bargain if the speech is speech that the federal government hates or fears. You know, I think the problem is they also get a lot of money from very rich pro-Israel donors who exert their leverage openly people like bill ackman and robert craft openly you know threatening to defund universities that don't tow their line they don't crack down on the free speech of people who support palestinian rights and they do have an influence there's no denying that the power of the donor class is being shown in front of our eyes right now.

And it's very difficult for people who don't have any political power, don't have any financial power to mobilize, except for just to gather in large numbers. And that's why they're being cracked down on is when people get together, show their determination, show their willingness to come together and just use the power of the people, that's when the state cracks down. And what we're seeing right now is this unprecedented demonization. You mentioned the mayor of New York, Eric Adams. He talked about these kids being co-opted by outside forces. He, of course, couldn't provide any evidence for that. That's always the narrative used. Any tactic they can to try to demonize these brave people to justify violence and arrests and assaults on their free speech.

You know, Eric Adams, Mayor Adams, actually chuckled. He used the 1960s phrase, outside agitators. Oh, God, you say something the government doesn't want to hear and you're an agitator. The playbook doesn't change. The playbook doesn't change. Right. Before we leave, I want to go back to your extraordinary expertise on Ukraine, because this issue has come up a couple of times this week. Is Zelensky out of power in three weeks? Is his term over? And there was no election for him to run for re-election or to replace him. And if it is true that he's out of power and his term is over, who's in charge?

You know? I believe because of the martial law that he's declared effectively. I mean, he's already canceled previous elections. So I think that will grant him an extension to stay in power longer. I don't think he'll be stepping down in three weeks. Certainly, we're not going to have elections. So I think we'll be seeing Zelensky around for as long as the U.S. deems him to be useful because he's been a really important tool for them so far.

One anecdote I tell in the story, which has really been overlooked, a major cause of Russia's initial troop buildup, the one that culminated in the troop buildup that led to the invasion, began a year earlier. Right after Joe Biden took office, the Zelensky government offered what one Zelensky official called a, quote, welcome gift to Biden. And what was that welcome gift? This is well before Russian forces started massing on the border of Ukraine. They took three opposition television stations off of the air, and they seized the assets of an ally of Putin's, Viktor Medbichuk, who at the time was leading Zelensky in the polls, according to some polls. So that was Zelensky's welcome gift to Biden, cracking down on opposition media and going after, at that time, his most popular political opponent.

And it was only after then that Russia started putting troops on its border because, as Medvedchuk explained, hawks inside the Kremlin are going to see this as an assault, once again, on the ethnic Russians of Ukraine because those TV networks that were censored by Zelensky and the opposition party, that's who was favored by Eastern Ukraine. So you have at every turn the Biden administration encouraging a crackdown on democracy inside Ukraine. And what does it lead to? It leads to more conflict and disaster. And so far, as we're seeing now, now with this recent extension of the proxy war via $61 billion in new congressional funding, the policy is only to double down more. Thank you, Aaron. Thank you for your extraordinary encyclopedic knowledge of all this and for the fascinating way in which you relayed all of it to us. All the best. We'll see you again

soon. Thank you, Judge. And thanks for reading my article. It's more than 8,000 words. I know. It's a long article. I really appreciate it. Aaron, I couldn't put it down. and I encourage everybody that wants a great, take you half an hour, 30 minutes at most to read it, a great summary of how we got to where we are in Ukraine today. Read this piece by Aaron Matei. Thank you, Aaron. Thanks, Judge. Coming up at 5 o'clock Eastern, Aaron's sidekick, Max Blumenthal. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Altyazı M.K.