Judging Freedom - FBI Wray in contempt__ NATO Peace summit_ Arming Teachers in Class

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

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Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, May 31st, 2023. It's 4.15 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. Here are your hot topics, and it's all across the board. Domestic policy, domestic politics, and of course, Ukraine. We'll start with Republicans contending that they will hold FBI Director Chris Wray in contempt for refusing to hand over a document allegedly detailing Joe Biden's personal part in a $5 billion bribery scheme with foreign nations. Okay, you may have heard about this. The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Congressman Jim Comer, Republican of Kentucky, says that they have a whistleblower who has seen a document in the FBI's possession, which demonstrates Joe Biden's personal involvement when he was vice president of the United States

in a bribery scheme. Whether the bribery scheme happened, whether he actually committed the bribery, we don't know. They can't seem to find the whistleblower, but the whistleblower did tell investigators for the House Oversight Committee that the whistleblower had seen the document. Okay, now that's largely not disputed. What is also largely not disputed is that this House Committee sent a subpoena to Chris Wray, the director of the FBI, demanding to see the document, and Wray has refused to produce it. Now the House committee says they're going to

vote to ask the full House to hold Director Wray in contempt. Now you'll know if they are serious by whether they do a political contempt or a legal contempt. Political contempt is a vote by the House of Representatives. It'll be absolutely one-sided, in which the Republicans, the majority, will say, we hold you in contempt, Chris Wray, because you refuse to comply with our lawful subpoena. And there it will end, and no one will harm a hair on Chris Wray's head. A legal contempt would be for the House of Representatives to commence an action against Chris Wray in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia Circuit, just a couple of blocks from the Capitol building, in which a federal judge orders him to comply with the subpoena. And then if he doesn't supply,

the federal judge will dispatch, this is unthinkable, U.S. Marshals to arrest the director of the FBI. That's a contempt that will sting and be meaningful. It will affect his freedom. It will affect his job. It will affect his license to practice law. Prediction, they'll do the political contempt. They will not do the legal contempt. Houses of representatives have held attorneys general in contempt for refusal to comply. But unless and until they commence an action and get a judge to order this, you know that this is all politics and hot air. We'll see.

I don't know what the story is with the whistleblower that they can't find the whistleblower. Congressman Comer told my former colleagues and friends at Fox News, we can't find the whistleblower. We interviewed the whistleblower. We have the whistleblower's testimony under oath. We believe the whistleblower. We believe that this document existed. We believe this document still exists. We believe the FBI has it. We don't know where the whistleblower is. That's almost ridiculous. That would be ferreted out by the federal judge in federal court if they take the legal contempt route. If they don't, if they are too weak to do that, which I predict that they are, then again, this contempt of Chris

Ray will be nothing but a footnote. It won't harm a hair on his head and significantly, excuse me, it won't result in giving the, coughing up the document. If Chris Wright thinks he's going to go to jail, he's going to cough up that document, no matter what it says. But if he thinks he can get away with this, we'll never see the document. President Zelensky of Ukraine announced over the weekend a sort of G7 meeting in Kyiv. Actually, it would be G8, which is G7 plus Russia. Russia, of course, has been pretty much kicked out of G7 since the Ukraine war. But the purpose of this is to discuss peace proposals.

Well, there's only one peace proposal that will work, and that's a ceasefire. I am confident the Russians would agree to a ceasefire right where everybody is now, but the Ukrainians, of course, won't agree to that ceasefire. They won't agree to a ceasefire until Russia leaves what they consider Ukraine, which is obviously not going to happen. Nevertheless, the idea that the G7,

and I don't think it's the actual heads of state, I don't think Joe Biden's going to happen. Nevertheless, the idea that the G7, and I don't think it's the actual heads of state, I don't think Joe Biden's going to be there, but Tony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State might be there. The Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin might be there. The National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan might be there. Victoria Nuland, she'll be there. Perhaps Lindsey Graham will be there. That type of a high-ranking individual in the foreign policy apparatus or involved some way in the foreign policy apparatus of the same seven countries that just met in Hiroshima, Japan, the place where we dropped the first atomic bomb and from which Joe Biden announced that F-16 fighter jets made in the United States and sold to American allies in Europe will now be delivered to President Zelensky.

Though representatives of those countries will be meeting. It's a farce. Nothing will come of it. Zelensky is no more interested in a ceasefire than the Russians are. In the past two days, Russian or Ukrainian drones, are they Ukrainian? We'll get to that in a minute, have attacked Russian oil refineries and destroyed $100 million worth of equipment and oil. Dmitry Medvedev, who's the deputy chair of the Russian National Security Council, the former president of Russia, President Putin for two terms, Dmitry Medvedev for one term, President Putin for three terms.

He's now in the third consecutive term, the fifth term overall. At the time, Dmitry Medvedev was the president of Russia. The Russian constitution did not permit you to succeed yourself more than once, just like the U.S. constitution. That has since been changed. Just to give you a picture of who he is. He has identified the source of these drones as British. British made, British sent. So the Brits, according to former President Medvedev, have attacked Russian military installations in Russia. What does that mean?

Well, that means that under the law, the Russians can attack Great Britain. This is really getting out of hand. And it's getting out of hand because the West is pushing Russia's hand. The West is using Ukraine as a battering ram. The United States is determined to start World War III. If you watch this show, you've seen these clips of the Deputy Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, saying that the Ukrainians should attack Crimea. Crimea has been Russia since 1730, 1730, 60 years before the United States Constitution came into existence. She wants the Ukrainians to attack Crimea and the United States to support it. If you watch this show, you've seen clips of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban saying NATO is making this worse. But NATO's heart isn't even in it. If it was, NATO would send troops, but it's not. NATO is just paying lip service because they all know, they all know that Ukraine will lose.

Now enters the British, using their own drones to fly from God knows where, probably an American base somewhere in Western or Eastern Europe, to destroy $100 million worth of oil and oil refinery equipment in Russia. That does not look good, Prime Minister of Russia, excuse me, of Great Britain and whoever made that decision. All right, you all know this one because we've been playing the tapes over and over, and the tapes, of course, are also being played on regular television that over the American Memorial Day weekend by the way it's a three-day weekend in in Europe as well it's Pentecost so from the days when most of Europe was Catholic Monday was Pentecost Monday a holiday in nearly of Europe. I only know that because I was just there. So they had a three-day weekend. We had a three-day weekend. The Russian Orthodox Pentecost is not for another two weeks, but the weekend was shattered in Moscow by drones, which landed and

exploded relatively harmlessly. It did some damage to high-rise buildings in what's described as a high-end neighborhood in Moscow about 10 minutes from the official residence of President Putin. There it is. You can see that explosion. Colonel Schaefer says 500 to 1,000 pounds of explosives. Colonel McGregor says a lot less, but either way, enough to do a lot of damage.

Colonel McGregor says fired from inside Russia. So pro-Ukrainian Russians firing drones inside Russia. Could you imagine if that happened in the U.S.? In any country in the world, that person would be arrested for terrorism or treason and for attempted murder. We'll see what happens. We'll see if they caught anybody. President Putin wasn't there. President Putin wasn't hurt. No one was hurt. But there are some photographs around. You can Google them. And you'll see damage to high-rise buildings. You'll see a burnt-out area.

You'll see a window that's gone. You'll see an air conditioner that looks like it's damaged. Why attack a residential area? I guess it's some sort of an effort to tell President Putin that the enemy is within. It's hard to believe that the Ukrainian military is crazy enough to do this. On the other hand, if it is, and if it is Ukrainian, we know that the U.S. CIA knew about it and reported it, and the American government either encouraged it or looked the other way. I'm not sure which is worse. Hungary's Viktor Orban gave a very, very articulate and compelling statement. We'll play it for you in a minute, and then I'll comment on it after he says it. But listen to it. It's longish

as these statements go. It's maybe a minute, 35 seconds, but he's very articulately saying, and here's a country that was invaded by the Russians in 19, the Soviets in 1956, when he was a boy, remember seeing the tanks. But he's basically saying, look, my heart goes out to the Ukrainian people. Nobody wants to endure this kind of war. Let's, let's face it. They can't win and nato knows they can't win because nato is not putting troops on the ground here's hungarian uh prime

minister victor orban brilliant you you made a great deal about 19 i'm through the 1956 and fighting for freedom you have a neighbor who was invaded by Russia, the very country. You grew up with pictures of tanks going into Budapest. Why are you opposing the European aid? No, no, it's emotionally. It's tragic. So all of our heart is with the Ukrainians. We understand how much they suffer.

But I'm speaking here as a politician who should save lives. The most important thing for the international political communities is to save lives. Especially when you are convinced, as I do, that there is no chance to win this war. So therefore, what we should do far more energy invest into to convince everybody that the only solution is ceasefire. And then after the ceasefire, peace talks should start. And then we could back to your point, yeah? But do you really think there is no chance of Ukraine winning? Surely they stand very little chance of winning without the aid which you are currently blocking. No, no, my position is that looking at the reality, looking at the figures, looking at

the surroundings, looking at the fact that NATO is not ready to send troops, it's obvious that there is no victory for uh poor ukrainians on the battlefield it is obvious looking at the facts that since NATO won't send troops even NATO doesn't believe that Ukraine can win you may have heard me express an opinion on this in my interview with Colonel McGregor earlier today. I said then, and I say now, I was surprised at the intellectual honesty and articulation that came from President Putin. It's my own, from President Orban, my own fault. I don't know that much about him. I know that he's in NATO. I know that Hungary's in NATO. And I know that he has voted against any kind of aid and Hungary won't give any aid. And now we know why. His heart is with the Ukrainian people, but his head says they're going to lose. And why should we extend the war?

Same argument you've heard here from Larry Johnson, from Colonel McGregor, from Scott Ritter, from Phil Giraldi, from Ray McGovern, and from me. RAND Corporation just did a study interviewing teachers around the United States, and more than a half a million of them are prepared to be armed in class in order to stop a mass shooter. Even more of them say that more of them should be carrying guns because that's the only way to stop the shooter. They're willing to be trained and they're willing to carry the guns visibly to deter shooters from using it. We used to run these photos of signs outside of schools. Gun-free school zone.

Stay away. Well, that's like saying come here and shoot fish in a barrel. Or the children in this school are protected by armed guards. Proceed at your own risk. Which of those two signs is going to deter a murderous thug? To the extent that the thug reads and reasons the way the rest of us do, it's obviously the latter. But knowing that administrators and teachers are carrying weapons and prepared to use them in order to protect the lives of the children. That is what

will deter the students. Is it an optimal situation? Of course not. When I was in grade school, I couldn't imagine the teacher carrying a gun, but there weren't these mass shootings then. The lack of Judeo-Christian morality, the teaching by schools that anything goes, the teaching by schools that you can do anything you want and get away with it, fosters this culture that if you hate somebody or if you hate the group to which the person belongs, go get a gun and kill them. And when this happens, the only way to stop the killer is with another gun, either by the police, who are often courageous but. And when this happens, the only way to stop the killer is with another gun, either by the police, who are often courageous but not there when this starts, rarely there when it

starts, or by a good guy with a gun, in this case a teacher or an administrator. You may have heard of this homicide that occurred on a New York City subway car recently, where an ex-Marine, now a college student, he's about 22 or 23, named Daniel Penny, choked a guy to death. The guy was a homeless person. Interestingly, very talented. There's Daniel Penny. There's the conflagration on the subway. The rear end that you see is not the guy that died. That guy is holding down the guy that died.

Penny applied a Marine Corps instructed chokehold. And according to the medical examiner, applied it too hard and crushed the windpipe, and this guy died. The issue now is this homicide or not. Why am I bringing this to your attention? Because Daniel Penny is going to do the unthinkable. He's going to testify before the grand jury investigating him. I say unthinkable. It rarely happens. years as a criminal defense lawyer. Once did I advise, and the client took my advice and the jury did not indict him, that a client testified before the grand jury. It's very difficult to do

because lawyers are not there. The judge is not there. You don't know what the grand jury knows. You don't know what questions they're going to ask you. It requires a lot of preparation and courage and fidelity to the truth. Because if you mislead the grand jury, they're going to indict you for perjury as well as for the underlying crime. It's a very courageous thing for him to do, and I would advise him to do the same. In my view, this is a form of homicide because he crushed the windpipe of this poor, disheveled, foul, menacing, but utterly and ultimately harmless person. No weapon on him, no means to use deadly force. The law is you can only use deadly force on your attacker when you perceive that the attacker has or is about to employ deadly force.

This kid was not the attacker and he didn't have deadly force. Okay, you'll hear these arguments till we're blue in the face. But the news peg on this is that this young man, the curly-haired, blonde-haired kid, the ex-Marine who performed this chokehold that resulted in death, is going to testify directly to the grand jury that seeks to indict him. If they don't indict him, it will be a marvelous and courageous thing. If they do indict him, I think he'll be convicted, and rightly so. Woo! Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, as she joins the growing chorus of Republicans in the House of Representatives. At the time she said this, which was a few hours ago, there were 24 Republicans voting no on McCarthy's debt ceiling debacle. Why is it a debacle? Because it doesn't raise the debt ceiling. It removes it. It allows Joe Biden's Treasury Department to borrow as much money as it wants. It's a killer for debt. Right now, the country's debt is $31.4 trillion. If this thing passes,

A, it will show that Kevin McCarthy is just a big government guy who has no more fidelity to the Constitution or small government than the man on the moon does. And B, it will allow Joe Biden and his folks in the Treasury Department to increase the debt from $31 trillion without limit. It'll probably go to $37 or $38 trillion. At that rate by 2025, that's a trillion a year in interest on the debt, right off the top. They will be borrowing money in order to pay interest on borrowed money. Can you imagine a bank letting you do that? Of course not. Well, the federal government has no credit rating, but that's what it will probably do. Mitch McConnell's in favor of this, the big government Republicans. Those are the Republicans who are pro-war, pro-welfare state, pro-national security

state, pro-big government. They're not interested in shrinking the government as Republicans once were. They're interested in their version of big government. And that's what they will give us by allowing Joe Biden, who, according to Congresswoman Mace, can't find his pants. That is brutal. But yes, he did outsmart Kevin McCarthy because he got McCarthy to agree to debt without limit that will crush the taxes that will be imposed on your children and your grandchildren and your great grandchildren as a president as yet unborn scrambles to pay back this debt. How old is the debt? We're still paying back money Woodrow Wilson borrowed to fight World War one. 30 billion. Billion with a B. How much interest have we paid on it? The federal government?

15 billion with a B. That's a 50% interest rate. You can only imagine how much worse things will get. More as we get it. Scott Ritter back on Friday. Larry Johnson tomorrow. Doug McGregor, Colonel McGregor. Gary posted it already. It's a 30-minute interview. You don't want to miss it. Thank you for watching. Please share and tell your friends. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.