Judging Freedom - Europe v. U.S. _Zelenskyy demands Crimea Retake_ AOC v. Clarence Thomas (1)

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. WGU is an online accredited university that specializes in personalized learning. With courses available 24-7 and monthly start dates, you can earn your degree on your schedule. You may even be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material you know. Make 2025 the year you focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, April 10, Easter Monday, 2023. It's about five minutes after 11 o'clock in the morning here on the East Coast of the United States.

Here are your hot topics for today. And there are a nice variety of events that have come to the fore since we went dark for the Easter Triduum, for Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday itself. When flying home from Beijing to Paris, President Macron of France gave a press conference inside the French Air Force One, the French Air Force jet reserved for the use of the president of France. And he acknowledged that Europe is facing many crises today, even crises today, April of 2023, that it

didn't expect it would be facing in February of 2023. And he made a couple lines in the sand. One is that Europe will not become a vassal state to the United States of America. And he's right. Europe shouldn't be a vassal state, a follower to the United States of America. Sure, Europe should be its own independent continent with its own independent traditions, with its own independent prosperity. Second point he made is that Europe, as a unified continent, will become one of the great powers in the world. The United States, Russia, and its vassal states, China and its vassal states, the U.S. and its vassal states, and Europe. He didn't say Europe would have any vassal states, China and its vassal states, the U.S. and its vassal states, and Europe. He didn't say Europe would have any vassal states. We'll see if it does. Of course, it did for 500 years with all of its colonizations. Today, it doesn't. I was very impressed

with what President Macron said. As most of you who are regular followers of Judging Freedom know, half the problems in the world today are caused by American imperialism, are caused by American exceptionalism, that somehow Americans are better people than others, that America is a better place than others. Yes, America is the land of the free, but with every tick of the clock, the government grows, and because government is essentially the neg of the free, but with every tick of the clock, the government grows. And because government is essentially the negation of freedom, freedom shrinks. For President Macron to acknowledge what former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was George W. Bush's poodle, would never have acknowledged is great for human freedom in Europe. It's great for human freedom in the United

States. It's great for human freedom and prosperity all over the world. And I was very happy to hear President Macron say it. We'll see if President Biden and the globalists, the nationalists, and the State Department have anything to say about this. My opinion is they'll have plenty to say, but it'll all be below the radar screen. None of it will be in public. They don't know how to deal with President Macron. Look, one could argue that France today is a socialist country. There are demonstrations in the streets because the government of France raised the retirement age. Government and retirement age? Can you imagine that here? Yeah. Well, the streets because the government of France raised the retirement age. Government and retirement age? Can you imagine that here? Yeah. Well, the government pays the pensions in France.

So they want you to work until you're 66 instead of 64. And those who are about to turn 64 are upset about that. So it's a socialist system. There are capitalist and free market aspects to it. You can still own and operate a small business in France. There's a lot of regulation. But if you can tolerate the regulation or afford to hire somebody to deal with the regulations for you, you can run the business. of the United States of America telling France what its foreign policy should be, like we do to Germany? What do you mean, Judge, like we do to Germany? Yes, like we do to Germany. Did you hear any complaints in Germany about the U.S. destroying Nord Stream 2 pipeline? No, because that's United States foreign policy. And therefore, it's got to be German foreign policy that the German people will suffer in order to enhance Joe Biden's sanctions on Russia. United States controls German foreign policy. United States virtually occupies Germany. The largest military base in all of Europe is an American base in Germany, in Wiesbaden, where the American hospital

is. Who pointed all that out? President Putin of Russia last week when he said, when is the U.S. going to stop occupying Germany? I'm sure that phrase partially animated what President Macron said. Putin didn't say it about France, but he said it about Germany, and it's the truth, and Macron knew it. After Ukraine occupies Crimea. Okay, Crimea has been part of Russia since 1730. 1730. 40 years before, 46 years before the United States seceded, the 13 colonies seceded from Great Britain. That's how long ago it was. Why is he saying this? It is impossible for Ukraine to reoccupy Crimea. Here's what he said. There's an English translator. I don't know if it's a person

translating or a computer. It sounds like a computer voice. But if you're watching, you'll see President Zelensky and you'll hear this voice. Here we go. The world should know respect and order will return to international relations only when the Ukrainian flag returns to Crimea, when there is freedom there, just like everywhere else in Ukraine. All right, we're going to run it again. Again, I don't know, you can form your own judgment if that was a computerized voice or a human being doing the translating.

Whoever or whatever did the translating was pretty fast. So, Gary, run it one more time, please. The world should know respect and order will return to international relations only when the Ukrainian flag returns to Crimea, when there is freedom there, just like everywhere else in Ukraine. Well, the Crimeans voted to be part of Russia as they had been for many, many years until the so-called revolution in 2014. You've heard me argue this. You've heard Colonel McGregor, Scott Ritter, Ray McGovern, Phil Giraldi, Larry Johnson, all of our regular military and intelligence community friends

make the same argument. You have also heard on this show, Victoria Newland, who is the number three person in the State Department, suggests that the United States military should be involved in bombing Crimea, in killing innocent Russian-speaking Ukrainians and Russian-speaking Russians who live in Crimea in order to remove the Russian government from Crimea. I guess she really does want to start World War III. I guess she really does want her boss, Joe Biden, to run for re-election as a wartime president. I would think that the statement that President Zelensky just made was made to please her and her colleagues in the State Department so they can whisper into President Biden's ear, send fighter jets to Ukraine, send the fighter jets to bomb

Crimea. That's what President Zelensky needs. That's what we need in order to win this war. What the second half of that statement would be is that's what we need to start World War III, Mr. President. Is there anybody in America, anybody, aside from the crazy neocons that love all war, that think American boys should die to kill Russian boys over Ukraine. Is there anybody in America, aside from the crazy neocons, who think the United States should risk World War III over Ukraine? Is there anybody in America, aside from the crazy neocons, and they're in both parties, who can back up ideologically, constitutionally, legally, and morally what President Zelensky just said about there won't be peace until the Russians are removed from Crimea? The short answer and the long answer to those three questions is no, no, no, and no. I would like to question President

Biden. You've heard me say this. Mr. President, what is your goal with the now $60 billion with a B that you have spent in Ukraine? Is it the removal of Ukrainian troops from Crimea? That's an impossibility. Is it a military impossibility? Is it the removal of President Putin from office? President Putin, who's more candid, open, and honest about the state of world affairs than you and your acolytes have ever been? That's an impossibility. What is your goal, Mr. President? Ah, is it to run for re-election as a wartime president? You really want to kill American boys so you can have eight years in the White House, President Biden? Is that where we're going? That's where President Zelensky wants him to go. Over the weekend, it was revealed in an article

in Politico, and now it's been picked up everywhere, that Justice Clarence Thomas has been vacationing with a billionaire friend. Lavish, high-end, expensive vacations for the past 25 years. So far, no harm, no ethical violation, no crime, except he didn't report it. That's a problem. Just judges and justices are required to report any gift they receive that's more than $100. Now, in the case of this they don't have to report hospitality so if i have justice and mrs alito over to my home for dinner and and put the food in their dish that's going to go in their bodies that's hospitality they don't have to report it if he stays as a guest in my home they don't have to report it but i would think knowing justice alito as i do he would report it and if it happened regularly consistently systematically and if i sent a

private jet to pick him up i don't have a private jet and if i sent a 165 foot private yacht i don't have any boats uh to uh wine and dine him on he would would report it. I would think all judges and justices would report it. Justice Thomas did not. AOC, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she of the hard left progressives, with whom I don't always agree, but I do agree with progressives generally on war and peace, on what you can do with your own body, on the criminalization of drugs and things of that nature, privacy. She made a very profound statement over the weekend, and I agree with her, even though I have wined and dined with Justice Thomas. I don't know if he reported it. I didn't pay for it. It was a large banquet where I was twice where I was privileged to sit at his at his table. But this type of regular, consistent, systematic, high end, probably multimillion, if you add these vacations up in the aggregate type of vacations should be made known to the public. Here's Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio

Cortez over the weekend talking about Justice Thomas, what she thinks is right, what she thinks is wrong, and what she thinks should be done about it. Early in my tenure at the court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends who did not have business before the court was not reported. What is your response? I think that his own statement contradicts many of the facts on the ground and also raises in other ways even more serious questions. Later on in his statement, he stated that the reason and the rationale for this exemption was personal hospitality from an old friend. And he said himself in his statement, a friend of 25 years.

Justice Thomas has been on the court for 30 years. admitting in his statement in an attempt to defend himself is that he began this relationship with a billionaire and receiving these sorts of gifts as after he was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. I think that that in and of itself indicates a very, very serious problem. And then on top of that, he is now implicating his colleagues. And I do believe that Chief Justice John Roberts must now come forward and state if he allows and is allowing this kind of very serious corruption to happen on this court. Well, look, these people hate Justice Thomas. You know, he is one of the traditionalist justices on the court. Justice Thomas ordered the authored, among many other great opinions, the Bruin opinion, which AOC and her colleagues condemned. The Bruin opinion, which is just nine months old, says that the right to keep and bear arms, the right to carry a handgungun is a fundamental personal issue akin to the freedom

of speech. And of course, they hate that. And they would love nothing more than for Justice Thomas to leave the court and for Joe Biden to nominate and a Democratic-controlled Senate to confirm Justice Thomas's successor. They see an opening here. Everybody assumed Justice Thomas would be on the court until there's a Republican in the White House and a Republican Senate, but now the Democrats are salivating. This is not an impeachable offense. As I said, I think he should have revealed it. It's an interesting question as to whether it is a technical violation of the ethics rules. In my opinion, it is not a technical violation of the ethics rules because it is in the form of personal hospitality. It's not like this rich Texas billionaire said,

go stay at the Four Seasons in Florence for two weeks and send the bill to me. It's like he said, come with my wife and me while we are vacationing and we'll pick up the bill, whether it's the Four Seasons in Florence or whether it's the yacht or whether it's the private jet or wherever they go to and however they get there. I'm not downplaying it. I'm saying in the aggregate, it looks bad and it ought to have been reported. And I think that a mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault, would be appropriate. But leaving the bench, absolutely not. Impeachment. That would be absurd. But expect the Democrats to clamor for that. It looks good. It doesn't pass the smell test. And I'm saying this as someone who was a life tenure judge and who did have to report all this stuff. It's a pain in the neck wearing that robe for life and having all of that authority, there are downsides. I don't usually read your questions, but there are many, many

comments, but I have to answer one of them. Judge, is it true that judges don't pay federal and state income tax? It is true that they do pay federal and state income tax. They pay income taxes just like the rest of us. I don't know how this ends. I expect there'll be a political battle. As I said, it happened in Easter time. The Congress is off this week. It was certainly off for much of last week because of Passover and Easter and the middle of Ramadan. But when everybody is back in town a week from today, I think you'll hear Democrats clamoring for Justice Thomas to leave the court. He doesn't need my advice. He's not going to leave the court. This is not an impeachable offense, but he ought to do the mea culpa so that this gets behind him. Friday on Good Friday, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a two-to-one opinion on whether or not the Department of Justice can use the obstruction of justice charges against the various people it has been prosecuting in the January 6th case. Now, three people were convicted of obstruction of justice. Excuse me, obstruction of justice is a corrupt, key word here, corrupt interference

with the normal operations of the government, whether it's the executive branch, the legislative branch, or the judicial branch. In this case, it was the legislative branch. These three folks were convicted of obstruction of justice by the manner in which they personally caused the Congress to flee from the House of Representatives chamber, that's the large meeting room, the same room that the president uses when he gives the State of the Union address. It doesn't fit all members of the House, so it certainly doesn't fit all members of the House and all members of the Senate, but they squeeze them in. So when Mike Pence, then Vice President of the United States, was presiding over a joint session of Congress in the House of Representatives chamber, and they were about to start counting the electoral votes.

That's when members of the public stormed in in riot fashion and members of Congress fled. The people that they caught, the people they could identify, the people they could gather evidence about. They prosecuted. They prosecuted them for many crimes, but the one that hurts the most because it has the longest jail time is obstruction of justice. So three people were convicted, among many others, of obstruction of justice. These three, the first three to be convicted, appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Aha. The court said, well, we are not sure if the government can keep using obstruction of justice charges in these cases because obstruction of justice requires a corrupt intent. So if your intent was to demonstrate your view that Joe Biden lost and Donald Trump really won the election, but you did not have the evil or corrupt intent of physically preventing the Congress from meeting, then you can't be charged and therefore can't be convicted

of obstruction of justice. So this is going to throw a monkey wrench in what the government has been doing. In the cases of the three that were before the judges, their convictions were upheld. But this will cause the Department of Justice to have second thoughts about all the other cases because now the DOJ has to prove evil or corrupt intent so that the obstruction was not a byproduct of what the defendant did, but was the evil intention of what the defendant did. Why evil? Because Congress used the word corrupt, which in this case is the same as evil. So the corrupt intent or evil intent must be the disturbance of what the government was attempting to do. And if Congress, if the DOJ cannot prove that evil or corrupt intent, then there is no obstruction of justice charge. Okay, the other big news over the weekend was the second leak

of top secret classified, highest classified documents we had. These documents that were leaked over the weekend are the same category as some of those that President Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago. Those weren't leaked from Mar-a-Lago. They were seized by the FBI when they executed a search warrant at Trump's home. But someone in the Defense Department or the intelligence community leaked these documents on Good Friday evening. And wow, do they show a lot. They show that the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have not been telling the public the truth about the state of Ukraine defenses. They show that Ukraine defenses are weak and deplorable,

and they also have some information in there about Russian defenses, which are probably not accurate. We will be discussing this at great length at 1130 a.m. That's just three minutes from now, Eastern Time with Ray McGovern. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. 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.