Judging Freedom - Biden, the CIA & Ukraine War - Where's the Truth? w/Ray McGovern

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, July 25th, 2023. Ray McGovern joins us for his weekly session with us. Ray, always a pleasure. Thank you for joining us. I have to tell you that I thought of you immediately in the past few days when I learned that President Biden unilaterally decided that Bill Burns, the director of the CIA, would become a member of the cabinet. Now, maybe to most Americans, that's sort of like ho-hum, what do I know? What do I care? What should we know? And why should we care? Well, it's axiomatic in intelligence work that if you're going to have any credibility at all, if people are going to believe that you're telling it like it is, you cannot be also a person who decides on policy. That doesn't work.

Now, there's a great example, an ignominious example of that during my time when Bill Casey, Ronald Reagan's chief of intelligence, was put on the cabinet. And even his deputy later told Walter Pincus of the Washington Post that he watched Casey time after time shape the intelligence to fit the policy that he, Casey, wanted to pursue. That's what happens. Even if it doesn't happen, the suspicion is always there once your chief intelligence person becomes part of the cabinet. So it's a no good thing. Now, with respect to Bill Burns, you know, he got promoted, so to speak, because he was singing the right tune. I mean, just four days before Biden told us all that Russia had lost, what welcome news, Russia's lost in Ukraine.

There was an op-ed in the Washington Post written by Bill Burns. They said Russia's really lost their military incapability. Their military poor performance has been exposed to all because of what's happened in Ukraine. Now, hello. We're going to see what happens here. I just wonder whether they have any shame at all and how they will be able to fall back on that position when it becomes very clear that Ukraine has not won and that Russia surely has not lost. Before we get to the president's absurd statements and Secretary Blinken's absurd statements about Russia having lost, I'm still a little intrigued about Bill Burns. Is Averill Haynes still his boss?

I mean, he's in the cabinet and she's not? I mean, isn't she? No, she is. We're still, Judge. She is also sitting around the cabinet table. So you have not one, not just one. Of course, Bill Casey pulled his own weight and a lot more. But now you have the director of national intelligence, who is a titular head of the whole community, supposedly supervising Bill Burns. They're both singing the same song. Here's April Haynes just a few months ago. Russia's running out of ammunition. They can't possibly produce it indigenously.

It looks like, well, she said, I'm very optimistic as how the counteroffensive by Ukrainians is going to go in the next couple of months. What counteroffensive, Mrs. Haynes? Here's Bill Burns just a few days ago at the Aspen Institute. Take a listen. Weaknesses have been exposed by Prokosian's mutiny, but I think even more deeply than that,

they've been exposed by Putin's misjudgment since he launched this invasion as well. And I think there's a relationship between the battleground in Ukraine and what's going on inside Russia in the sense that if and when the Ukrainians make further advances on the battlefield, I think what that's going to do is cause more and more Russians in the elite and outside the elite to pay attention to Prigozhin's critique of the war. Putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold. So he's going to try to settle the situation to the extent he can. But again, in my experience, Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback.

So I would be surprised if Prigozhin escapes further retribution for this. So in that sense, the president's right. If I were Progozhin, I wouldn't fire my food taster. Why should the chief spy be making statements like that in front of an audience that he knows will receive them well? He shouldn't. It sort of is the epitome of his having become a propagandist. And that's exactly what a director of the CIA. I know you're going to agree with me, Ray. That is so dangerous for the head of the CIA and thus the people that work for him to become propagandists. That assures, and you correct me if I'm wrong, that the president will only hear the intel that the people telling him think he wants to hear.

Well, that's correct. And it's also correct at the military. I mean, you have a secretary of defense now, Austin, who, when head of CENTCOM in Tampa, the command that's responsible for activities in the Middle East, 51 of his chief lieutenants, his generals up there, were falsifying the intelligence that the young people were sending up. Syria was a wreck. It was not going to be a win for the West, so to speak, and a loss for Assad. So he's got a record of this. If he knows what the person wants to hear, he's going to tell the person. You know, it is. I'm not big on federal criminal statutes. I think the Constitution only authorizes two, treason and debasing the money supply. Congress has written 5,500 federal criminal statutes. Among them, it's a crime to lie to an official of the government in an official capacity. A drug dealer in Brooklyn was famously arrested by the FBI when they said to him, what's your name? And he said, Nancy Reagan. And they

arrested him for lying to the FBI. It was their way of getting them off the streets and the court upheld it. It's absurd, but that's the law. Is there no sanction for CIA leadership, mid-level or top leadership, lying to the president and his people in order to shape policy? The answer is no, Judge. And I can tell you that from personal experience. Back in the fall of 1967, we analysts came up with the word that there were between 500 and 600,000 Viet Cong, communist insurgents, so to speak, with arms in South Vietnam. General Westmoreland said, no, there could not possibly be more than 299,000. Okay, what happened? Tet, two months later, late January, early February 1968, the Vietnamese communist attacked with guess how many? 550 or 600,000 people. What happened was

LBJ just gave in and said, no, I'm not even going to run anymore. This is such an embarrassment. Why did that happen? It happened because Richard Helms, the head of the CIA at the time, told us, look, my job here at CIA is to protect the agency. And if you think with this dispute in numbers that I'm going to get involved in a pissing match with the U.S. Army at war, well, then I'm not defending the agency. So sorry about that. You're right. Everyone agrees you're right, except the U.S. Army. But we're going to go with Westmoreland's numbers. That was consequential. You know what happened, okay?

Now, this time, there's numbers game as well. Will anybody tell Biden, hey, you've been had here. These guys are a bunch of clucks. They don't know which end is up. Is anybody going to tell them that? I don't know of anyone in a position. I had hoped earlier that Burns might be a guy like that. Let me add just one thing so people know about Burns.

I used to respect him. I met him when he was ambassador to Russia, February 2008. Here's just two sentences out of a cable he wrote back to Washington, now Bush and Cheney were in charge. Quote, Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite, not just Putin. In more than two and a half years, conversations with Russian key players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I find no one who views Ukraine in anything as anything other than a direct challenge, direct provocation to Russian interests. Now, why do I say that? End quote. Okay. Well, now, 15 years later, what's Bill

Byrne saying? Unprovoked. No provocation. Putin drove his armies into Ukraine without provocation. He's a bad, bad, bad guy. And I know because I'm the head of CIA. Give me a break. Can you forget stuff like that in 15 years? I don't think so. He's a propagandist and he's telling the president what the person wants to hear. And so he gets promoted to the cabinet on those merits. God help us all. We'll take a break when we come back. More

from Ray McGovern on what's the significance of the Russian shooting down the Ukraine-Russia grain deal right after this. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Lear Capital. You know that I believe that that government is best which governs least, and that government is worst which interferes the most. There's no better example of this than government printing money. It decreases the value of everything you own, and it raises the prices on everything you buy. And I believe that one of the best protections against this kind of governmental interference is physical, unprincipled gold. Your savings and your retirement should be filled with gold. Gold has a long history of protecting wealth against economic uncertainties and

government interference. Learn more by calling Lear Capital. You know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital. I have partnered with Lear because I trust them and believe them, and I buy my gold with Lear. Why? They have over 25 years of experience and thousands of five-star reviews and a 24-hour risk-free purchase guarantee. Give them a call today, 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620. The information is free. There's no obligation to purchase. When you call, ask how you can qualify for $15,000 in bonus gold. It's time to consider gold. It's time to consider Lear, 800-511-4620 or learjudgenap.com. We're chatting with Ray McGovern, former career CIA agent. What explains to us the wheat deal between Russia and Ukraine, which now no longer exists. Who did what to whom? Well, Judge, before the little interruption there, you talked about how do you explain the Russians shooting down the grain deal?

And you yourself have corrected yourself in the past. The Russians didn't shoot down the grain deal. They re-noted for a couple of months several times. What happened? Well, the West didn't live up to the terms of the grain deal. Part of that was to relieve some sanctions on what the Russians were able to do with their shipping, and that didn't happen. So, long story short, the Russians were diddled again. Now, there's more to it than that. Adyessa. Adyessa is being bombed to smithereens, one of the main ports exporting these grain deals.

What's the West going to do? Now, Zelensky wants the Turks to escort, you know, break the blockade. The Turks said, I thank you very much. We don't want to get involved with Russia that way. Is the West going to help Zelensky try to defy these new regulations in the Black Sea? I don't know. But it's very, very volatile there because there are ships and there are people taking potshots at bridges and all manner of things that can happen in the Black Sea to no one's good. So what becomes of the grain now? This is Ukrainian grain, is it not? Or grain grown and harvested in Ukraine? Yeah, I guess the Russians have

reserved the right to inspect all ships going into Ukrainian ports. And that takes a while. Sometimes they find stuff. There's some recent reports about gunpowder or some sort of explosive powder on one of those ships. So it's going to delay things. The Russians have their own way of exporting grain. They have a bumper crop. So it's something of a fiction to say that the people who really need it and the people who the Russians ship to will be deprived of what they need to eat.

It's complicated. But the main thing is that in the Black Sea and up toward Belarus and Poland, there are fires brewing. There are demonstrative gestures to say this far, but no farther, according to Putin. And I just learned this morning, Shoigu, the defense minister, is off to North Korea for consultations. Whoa. Why would the Russian defense minister be in North Korea? What could the North Koreans possibly supply to the Russians? Well, they don't need supplies from North Korea. What they need to

do is just round up all the likely suspects, okay, get all the people who are allies of Russia and China in this confrontation, line them all up and say, look, we don't know what the U.S. is going to do. I, Vladimir Putin, have called these people crazy for perpetrating or risking a two-front war against not only us, but China. And you guys are also involved. There could be. So look, let's make it very clear that if NATO, if the collective West does something really egregious, that they do face a two-front war. And that might mean they would have to do some exercises that are even more provocative than the ones you've done here before. Wow. Getting back to the American propagandist in chief. Here's the president in Helsinki right after the conference in Vilnius two weeks ago trying to do his best to make a simple declaratory statement

that Russia in his view has lost the war. The issue of whether or not this is going to keep Putin from continuing to fight, the answer is Putin's already lost the war. Putin has a real problem. How does he move from here? What does he do? And so the idea that there's going to be what vehicle is used. He could end the war tomorrow. He could just say, I'm out. But what agreement is ultimately reached depends upon Putin and what he decides to do. But there is no possibility of him winning the war in Ukraine. He's already lost that war.

Imagine if even if, anyway, he's already lost that war. Imagine if even if anyway, he's already lost that war. Now, do you think, I know you're not a shrink, he honestly believes that, he honestly believes that, or Bill Burns and company have given him such propaganda that it seems credible? Well, they're not mutually exclusive, of course. Correct. I think the latter is quite true. You know, it doesn't matter what I believe. It matters what Putin believes. He's already called these people crazy. What is he to think about his opposite number with his fingers on the codes for nuclear weapons in this kind of shape? You know, I regret to say that were I Pooching,

I would prepare for the worst and I would have my retaliatory forces on trigger alert. I mean, what would these crazy people advise Biden to do next? And how close would he be to say, well, that makes sense, and mumble through what the justification, in quotes, would be for the American people? This is really strange. It's really very dangerous. And as I say, it all depends on how, not only Putin, but his military look at these things. And the military, of course, looks at capabilities, not intentions. So if the capability of the U.S. is to notch up the escalation to send F-16s, which even the U.S. is now backtracking on, you know, that would be a nuclear-capable aircraft to be shot down by superior Russian aircraft. You know, I hold no

brief for Russian superiority, but it's there, folks. It's there not only in the conventional sense, it's there in a strategic sense for the first time since the Cold War began. Mark my words, they have hypersonic capabilities we do not have. And if the balloon goes up, God help us. You know, they're not in a position to sit back and say, well, OK. OK, we'll just take it. What is hypersonic capability, Ray? Well, those are things.

You remember when we were kids, if the airplane flew at Mach 1, that was the speed of sound, right? And then they got up to Mach 2, Mach 3. My God, Mach 3, three times the speed of sound. These hypersonic missiles go at between six and ten or more times the speed of sound. There's no defense. Matter of fact, Biden himself remembered being briefed on this, and he himself has said there's no defense against the hypersonic missiles. And you know, Russia has used them in Ukraine. They blew up a very, very big, well,

they blew up the head of the Russian, of the Ukrainian military intelligence center in Kiev about a month ago. And Putin was not loath to point that out. We can do this. And they can. And Patriot missiles, give me a break. No defense against these things, as Biden himself has admitted. So, you know, it just has to do with blood. It has to be with young kids being killed. The Wall Street Journal, for God's sake, says the U.S. knew, the Pentagon knew that this counteroffensive would never do anything except kill thousands of young Ukrainian men.

So, you know. It's always about young people being killed. Let me switch gears a little bit. How come Ukraine and its partners are running out of artillery shells? Well, it's a little embarrassing, isn't it? I mean, you know, from the Bible, we learn that the Vestal Divergents, the ones that didn't have an adequate supply of oil, they missed the wedding celebration, right? Right, right. You know.

Right. Yeah, right. So here you have, you know, we're going to war, but oh, we don't have enough 155 millimeter shells. What are we going to do? We got anything else on the shelf? Oh, yeah, well, yeah, maybe let's try these custom munitions. They might help. What's next?

But the Russians have more of those. Yeah, but then we have these tactical nukes. Judge, if tactical nukes come into play, it's going to be by the loser. The loser is the United States of America. And I don't know what Biden or the people who really make the decisions would say to these generals. It's a matter of honor. We can't just, we can't lose. I mean, we're in this for as long as it takes, right?

And it takes a couple of mini nukes. Crazy, a term well advised used by Putin himself. Here's Admiral Kirby imitating Baghdad Bob with my friend and former colleague, Fox Martha McCallum. But it's very interesting because you'll hear him say at the end, because we don't have artillery shells, we sent them cluster bombs. Take a look. What they really need are the four A's, artillery, ammunition, air defense, and armor tanks. And on all four of those, we have provided

an extraordinary amount of support at, quite frankly, unprecedented speed. Those are the four capabilities they need most. And if you look at the packages, just we just announced one yesterday, and there's going to be one here in coming days, you'll see that we are really trying to get them those kinds of capabilities. Now, look, the F-16s will get there probably towards the end of the year, but it's not our assessment that the F-16s alone would be enough to turn the tide here. What they really need more than anything of all those 4As is artillery. And that's why the president made a difficult decision to provide cluster munitions as a bridging solution as we build up our production capacity of normal,

conventional artillery rounds. They're firing thousands of them a day. It's really a gunfight. So two interesting observations there. One, turn the tide out of his mouth. So he admits the tide is against the Ukrainians. I've never heard him say that before. The other is we don't have any artillery shells. So as you just did in your own unique and humorous way, mimicking them, looking through a storage shack, he admitted that's why we sent them as a bridge until the artillery shells arrived, the cluster bombs. Judge, the point is this. Why don't we have basic ammunition for artillery? The reason is that the Soviet Union fell apart 32 years ago. It was no threat.

You couldn't persuade the Germans even to build new tanks because there's no threat from Russia. What happened? In 2014, we did a coup on Russia's periphery. We had been warned Ukraine should not be part of NATO. The new coup leaders we put in said, let's become part of NATO. That's when it started, the 22nd of February, 2014. Not the 23rd, not a month later when their main naval base in Sevastopol in Crimea was annexed to Russia. So if you don't know that, how many years, 14? Wow, that's nine

years ago. That's when it all started. And it takes a while to realize that this is going to happen. You've got to build these artillery shells. I know we're much better build F-35s at a half million apiece or more than a half billion apiece, even though it's hard to drive them in the rain or if it's real dark out. Give me a break. The F-16s will arrive by the end of the year. By the end of the year, there'll be very little hostilities left. Even Milley said they can't. They can't arrive by the end of the year. Correct. Ray McGovern, my dear friend, always a pleasure.

We'll talk to you again soon. Thanks, Judge. Of course. More as we get it. Colonel Douglas McGregor, two o'clock Eastern, right here today. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.