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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, April 17th,
2023. It's about 11 o'clock in the morning here on the East Coast of the United States.
Larry Johnson joins us now. Larry, we spoke at length last week.
You were the first person that I spoke with on Judging Freedom concerning the allegations against
Jack Teixeira, the 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman, who since has been arrested
by the FBI and charged under the Espionage Act for releasing national defense information outside of a secured grouping.
When you said that you thought this was a controlled leak by higher ups, that this young man couldn't possibly have done this on his own. It, of course, went
viral. Not only was the judging freedom clip in which you saw that watched by millions, but people
sliced and diced it and reposted it, and that was watched by millions. You have since then stood stood firm on your ground and have presented an analysis of how he couldn't possibly have had
access to some of the materials that were released and that the government says he caused to be
released. Please explain. Let me set the outset that in the aftermath of me saying that, I've been approached by several friends, retired CIA, former military, and they've all voiced the same concern.
In fact, one fellow is a retired Air Force officer.
His last job was inspecting the secure classified information facilities to certify and make
sure that they are operating properly. And he came up to me and said, there's no way.
There's absolutely no way. So the first clue that this is out of whack is that he published two
documents that are from the CIA Operations Center. That's a document that's prepared
overnight and during the day. So it appears twice daily.
It's a summary of intelligence from all geographic regions of the world.
And it's prepared by analysts who sit at a desk.
I worked there.
I was the Latin American analyst.
So my job was to monitor every single bit of traffic, SIGINT, human reporting from CIA sources, even State Department traffic, and put together a summary of
what are the most important items. And then that gets published so that the analysts, when they
come in to work in the morning, or as they're getting ready to leave in the afternoon, they'll
know what some of the critical issues are that they may not have been able to see. Because my
job is simply to monitor everything.
What's going on? What's the latest breaking news? Well, that's an internal document.
That doesn't appear on any server that the U.S. military operates.
And, you know, I would have expected if they had changed policy, I've got enough friends.
They would have come and said, hey, Larry, they've updated it. It's widely available.
It's not widely available, number one.
So what would the Air Force, never mind a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman who probably only works on weekends,
what would the Air Force be doing with an internal CIA document that was never put on a server? Ostensibly, it's to brief me to keep the
senior management, senior leadership informed. Understand that this particular unit that
Teixeira was a part of, the Air National Guard, is part of the 16th Air Force. Their job is
information warfare. In other words, and they're specifically connected to the the isr i hate to
dump the acronyms that stands for intelligence surveillance reconnaissance so all isr activities
of the u.s government are funneled into them and then you've got a lot of overhead surveillance
runs and mixed wing aircraft such as the Rivet Joint, RC-135,
and that information is brought down, and then they figure out how to send some stories.
So I think it's really, at a minimum, it's ironic, and at a more diabolic level,
it's highly, highly suspicious that these leaks come out of the information warfare component of the Air Force.
Does an Air National Guardsman work five or six, seven days a week like a full-time Air Force or full-time Army?
If the Air National guard was activated then we've got national guard units that were
activated and sent to combat theaters like afghanistan or iraq that would be one thing
but that's not the case with this current unit that takara is a part of so they're what they
you know you go back to the old weekend warrior and that's not to denigrate them but what they do
is they get together once a month well what i still don't know is what weekend of march and february march uh april did that unit meet because and when you
come together it's not just jack showing up on his own and they sign him to a cubicle and he's there
unmonitored and just doing reruns he's high-level system that has non-commissioned
officers, sergeants, and lieutenants, captains, majors, lieutenant colonels. Everybody is
there to make sure that their training objectives met and they assign tasks and they monitor
what's going on. And so to get access to those documents, he would have had to be in a skiff, and he'd absolutely not be left on his own just to do whatever he wanted to, if you will, surf the web.
All right.
What is the big picture significance to what you're saying?
That someone north of him, I guess nobody south of him, he's the bottom of the totem pole,
someone, don't let me put words in your mouth, Larry, significantly north of him,
wanted this information out there. Yeah, I don't think it's just necessarily someone,
it may be a group of people, that he became a convenient tool, someone they could manipulate, use to get a message out.
Because what has transpired, they already saw in February that within the intelligence community,
that the policy in Ukraine is going south, that it's going to collapse.
The United States does not have the industrial capability to sustain the ukrainian army in the field we can't provide enough
artillery shells artillery pieces or aircraft so that's number one then add to that what happened
in march and i think this was sort of the final impetus that promoter provided for these leaks
the the summit between putin and xi jinping of China has dramatically and historically changed world affairs.
It's important that the people listening to us now understand that.
This is transformative.
We've not seen anything like this since the end of World War II.
What it has done, it has upset the world order. Prior to March, prior to that summit, the United States, for example, was backing and supplying wars in Yemen and Syria.
The purpose of both wars was to target Iran and as an effort to try to weaken Iran.
Since that summit, China has created a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is now working
with Iran to stop the war in Yemen. They're working to stop the war in Syria by bringing
Bashar Assad back into the Arab League. Well, if you're a CIA officer who's been sitting there
running these, directing these wars, you're all of a sudden got
to be horrified this has fallen apart completely falling apart and then on top of it the role of
the u.s dollar is degrading into is a reserve currency and many not just one country but
multiple countries who basically tell the united states we don need you, we're going to go do our own thing. So in the midst of this, that's why I think there is a panic within some of the
foreign policy circles on the national security side and intelligence agencies and in the military
that, you know, we are now setting ourselves up for some major defeats. And part of the reason
to leak this information is to get it out there,
both to discredit, to show what Biden is really doing to make sure people focus on that and
prepare people for what I've called a soft landing. It's going to be more like a hard landing
when the reality intrudes that we've been unable to stop Russia in Ukraine, and Russia has completely overmatched us in both production of weapon systems and electronic warfare.
To substantiate what you just said, our friend and your colleague, Ray McGovern, points out that yesterday, Sunday, the Chinese defense minister flew to Moscow and went directly to President Putin. Now,
don't these guys usually meet defense minister to defense minister? Does the defense minister
of one country go directly to the head of state and the head of government to another country,
unless there's something profound and immediate to be discussed in private?
Well, have you seen the video as they're walking up to each other?
Putin extends his hand and the Chinese general snaps to attention, snaps off a salute,
and then shakes Putin's hand. You know, that's a sign of respect. And so what's really going on
there, I think, is that China recognizes it's going to face some provocations from the United
States militarily around Taiwan and in the China Sea. Russia is going to supply China with
hypersonic missiles. Up to now, the narrative has been, oh, China is going to need to supply
Russia. That's nonsense. That is an absolute piece of misinformation. What's going on is China and
Russia are going to be working together where Russia's providing China with these weapons
systems that one, China does not have. Two, the United States cannot defend against them.
Our ships have no air defense systems capable of stopping those hypersonic missiles that Russia has.
Wow. Let's get back to Ukraine. I want to run a clip of, I think you've seen this,
but I want you to see it in light of the views you've expressed and the evidence you've provided in support of those views about this leak. I want you to look at Secretary of State Austin testifying under oath before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Here's Senator
Wicker and Secretary Austin. When we finish watching this, I'm going to ask you point blank,
did the secretary lie under oath? Take a listen.
With regard to your optimism about Ukraine having the upper hand, that is what you told me yesterday.
It is. Now, Ukrainians have inflicted significant casualties on the Russians and they have depleted
their inventory of armored vehicles in a way that no one would have ever imagined. And so now we see Russia reaching for T-54s and T-55 tanks because of the level of damage
that the Ukrainians have inflicted on them.
And we have, in the meantime, been...
And reaching for those tanks demonstrates what to you, sir?
It demonstrates that their capability is waning.
And we've continued to witness them be challenged with artillery munitions and other things,
and they're reaching out to Iran, they're reaching out to North Korea.
I think we'll see an increase in the fighting in the spring as conditions for maneuver improve.
Do you believe there's a real chance for significant Ukrainian advancements between now and the beginning of winter. I believe there's a chance and we're
doing everything that we can do to ensure that they have their best opportunity to be successful,
Senator. Was Secretary Austin lying? Well, if he's not lying, he's not reading. It's one or the other.
Because if he, even the brief, some of these documents that were released from the February 28, March 1 timeframe, show very clearly that the upcoming picture for Ukraine is dire, that they're going to lose their ability for what they call a layered air defense.
In other words, up to now, they've at least had some ability to shoot down fixed-wing aircraft from Russia,
which is why Russia has used rockets and missiles instead of fixed-wing aircraft.
That's now gone.
And what we've seen is an attending uptick increase in the use of fixed-wing aircraft that are carrying, Russian aircraft that are carrying 500 kilogram, 1,500 kilogram, 3,000 kilogram.
That's almost 6, six thousand pounds that's
like you know a three ton bomb and they're dropping that now on Ukrainian positions and
Ukraine has no defense for it now Austin should have known this because it's in the briefings
so that's what I'm saying he either read it and decided to lie or he didn't read it. Either way, it's a sign of incompetence,
failure of leadership, and it actually puts at risk, jeopardizes U.S. national security.
Does the American public, now I'm going to ask you to become a political philosopher,
and I happen to know that you're a pretty good one, have the right to know this information?
Does the American public have the right to know what Joe
Biden's administration has been doing, particularly when it's in wartime, particularly when it results
in killing people, and particularly when it's trying to keep this secret? When it comes to asking
the sons and daughters of America's parents to go forward into a foreign land and put their lives on the line,
I think it is essential that the public be informed.
That's why our founding fathers established in the Constitution that the war power resides with the Congress.
They're supposed to limit the power, the ability of the executive to go launch military operations at will.
And, you know, unfortunately, the Congress has abdicated its role since it faced Vietnam.
And repeatedly we've seen it's not just Republican or Democrat, it's both,
have gone out and engaged the United States in military operations without any declaration of war.
And then what happens when the lies that are being told support that effort,
as happened in Vietnam, as we learned from the leaks of the Pentagon Papers,
and it has happened repeatedly, it's happening in Ukraine,
the government then wants to hide behind secrecy oh this is
classified you can't read it and yet once you get the classification just as Peggy Lee saying is
that all there is you realize that they're hiding some lies they're they're high they're trying to
they're not trying to protect the fact that we have a sensitive source that has said you know that let's
say vladimir putin's private secretary has been convinced to spy for us and he's providing us
all the insights into what vladimir putin is of course you would not want to leak or expose that
to compromise a source that's actually providing decent information but most of these issues with
classification particularly what's exposed
in the documents allegedly leaked by Teixeira, shows what the American public is being told
about the war in Ukraine is a lie. And I'll just give you another, it's a little unrelated to
Ukraine, but it's in the same vein. A very well-read, experienced
friend of mine, I was talking to him last night,
and I reminded him of
the One China policy, which
in that One China policy, the United States
recognized Taiwan as a
province of China.
And he goes, what?
Well, I thought Taiwan was an independent
nation. It just highlights
the propaganda that's being fed to the American people
that we're being led to believe that the Chinese and the Nazis
are doing something that's so against natural order and human rights
without taking time to recognize.
We made an agreement with them recognizing Taiwan as a province
in the same way that China recognizes Hawaii as a state of the United States.
But that's an example of how classification is used to obfuscate and mislead.
And yes, the American people have a right to know.
What is the administration's endgame in Ukraine?
I mean, they must know, Victoria Nuland to the contrary notwithstanding, the Ukrainian flag is never going to fly over Crimea.
They're not going to drive Putin out of office.
What is their realistic endgame by supplying billions in equipment and causing thousands of deaths?
They don't have one. They're like a degenerate gambler that's gone into the
blackjack table, and they're going to keep doubling down, even though they're losing money,
even though they're now having to take out a $500,000 loan from the house, and it's going to
come at a 25% interest. They don't care. They're going to keep doubling down because in their mind,
they've got to win this, and yet they're not willing to step back and objectively look at it i've i've never seen anything like this judge
there's such a complete divorce from reality and repeat lies that are provable lies or at least
have no bearing on what's going on where they tell themselves oh yeah russians suffering massive
casualties well how do you know that well that's what the ukrainians told us on what's going on where they tell themselves, oh yeah, Russia's suffering massive casualties.
Well, how do you know that? Well, that's what the Ukrainians told us.
Okay, that made, and that, go ahead. I was going to say that this separation from reality substantiates your view that these documents were probably leaked by high-ranking, intelligent
people who want the American public to know that we can't go on like this much longer?
Yeah, yeah. I think there are still some sane individuals within the bureaucracy
who understand that this world order that America has sat atop of since the
end of World War II, it's literally crumbling under us day after day. And the signs are, it's not a
matter of opinion or speculation, the signs are quite tangible. When you see the Iranian foreign
minister and the Saudi foreign minister
sitting in Beijing, China, shaking hands and changing a document, it's real. That's not
imagined. And then that's followed up by concrete actions where the two start exchanging prisoners.
They stop shooting at each other. They stop providing funds to the units that were attacking each other.
And ironically, the Chinese are the ones now bringing peace to the Middle East, not the United
States. And that is resonating in other parts of the world. Countries in Africa and Asia are
looking around going, wait a second, the United States keeps getting us into wars and you know because i i've asked
people i said tell me the last country china invaded they go well uh i said i'll make it easy
for you so vietnam 1979 that's because vietnam had invaded cambodia so the chinese came to the aid of
the cambodian allies and they lost to the vietnam But since then, China has not been invading countries.
So there's a need to objectively step back and say,
which country in the world has carried out more military operations in other and foreign nations without the permission of those nations?
And China is only one country that fits that profile.
It's us.
We need to look in the mirror and say,
we have met the end, and it is
unfortunately.
We've caused a lot
of mayhem, and there's a lot of
deep anger
that has been sort of suppressed over
the years, and countries now
are starting to reflect, you know,
push.
Larry Johnson, no matter what it is, it's so much appreciated all of your insight. Thank you very
much for joining us. Thank you, Judge. More as we get it. If you like this, like and subscribe.
More as we get it. Tony Schaefer, Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer at 3.30 this afternoon live
Eastern. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.