Judging Freedom - How Far will Biden go to Weaken Russia_

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, January 11, 2023. It's about 2.45 in the afternoon. Our guest today is one of our regulars who really needs little introduction to the regular Jud judging freedom office, Phil Giraldi. Phil was a CIA officer for many years, famous for doing something the CIA doesn't often do, telling the truth. No matter the consequences to himself or his career. Phil, it's a pleasure. Welcome back to the show. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me on. I hope everyone listening had a wonderful holiday. Yes, and belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family as well.

I couldn't help but wondering, watching what was going on in Brasilia this past week and weekend, and watching the reaction of the Brazilian government that many, the two of the heads of the security forces had been fired and one had been arrested, I couldn't help but wondering if the fine hand of the American Central Intelligence Agency wasn't involved in the riots that attempted to trash the presidential palace, the Supreme Court, and the legislature in Brazil. Do you have any thoughts or insights on that that you can share with us? Yeah, but first let me make an observation that, for example, in my own experience, you remember back in Iran-Contra. Now, during Iran-Contra, I was in Istanbul, and I was the guy who was running the Iranian government officials through Istanbul

into Washington for negotiations on the arms sales, which was completely illegal. But it wasn't that the CIA or me had what we would call a illegals activity division. These instructions, these orders come from way high up. In the case of Iran-Contra, it was basically coming from the National Security Council and from the high up. In the case of Iran-Contra, it was basically coming from the National Security Council and from the president himself. So this is where the orders come from. CIA does not have a regime change division. So you're telling me that the White House or the West Wing or the National Security Council can bypass senior management of the CIA, go direct to people like you and say, here's what we want you to do. Don't tell anybody. No, it's not exactly that way. They go through the senior management at CIA and CIA senior

management says, yes, we'll do it. And then they get in touch with someone like me, who has the actual contacts with the security people in these countries on the ground, and can go to these people who in some cases are recruited agents, in other cases are merely believers in what the United States is doing or what the CIA is doing. So it's like what I'm saying is it's easy to say CIA, CIA, CIA, but this stuff comes from a higher level. Okay. And before we get to your thoughts and what you may know factually about what happened in Brazil, I realize this is history. I worked for a couple of years with Ali North when we were both at Fox News, and I remain a fan of the late, great Ronald Reagan. Is it

your understanding that Reagan himself authorized or approved or knew and looked the other way about Iran-Contra? Well, I'm an admirer of Ronald Reagan too, and I think it was probably a good though convoluted decision, which as I said, probably if it had ever come to a court issue, it was illegal. But the fact is there were a lot of things spinning in the air while this was going on that were being addressed. And this certainly went through the National Security Council. Ali North was, of course, a major player in it. And I'm sure that President Ronald Reagan was at least briefed on it, if not given all the details.

Wasn't Cap Weinberger, who may have been the Secretary of Defense at the time, wasn't he indicted over this and pardoned by George H.W. Bush? Or is that another affair? Yeah, no, there were a number of players in this that were indicted. I think Ali North was indicted too, wasn't he? Yes, Ali North was indicted. Ali North was, I believe, if I'm wrong,

I'll hear about this in a phone call in 15 minutes. I believe he was convicted and then pardoned, or he was convicted and then a federal court threw out the conviction because the government used immunized information against him. He was given immunity, testified, said they wouldn't prosecute him. They prosecuted him and they used what he said under immunity against him. Whatever it was, he ended up having the indictment dismissed or the conviction thrown out. So his record is clear. But there was some, no surprise, deception or subterfuge on the part of the government. Okay, back to Brazil.

Did you get the same feeling i did do you know more than what open sources have told us what do you think well i got exactly the same feeling which is that this was a the same kind of operation orchestrated by the government and the cia probably was the implementing agency because they in Brazil would have had the contacts with the security people who were willing to go along with this. And there's also a parallel story going on about how this was all funded. Now it hasn't become completely clear, but they're claiming there are a number of businessmen who apparently provided the money and infrastructure to bring this crowd together. So I'm ready to say that these people are all

either agents of the United States government in one capacity or another, or people who are cooperating in terms of their own self-interest. Is this another stunt like happened in the early 50s in Iran where president, popularly elected president Mossadegh was overthrown and the Shah was put into, these people want to overthrow president Lula because he's so far to the left and bring back president Bolsonaro? Yeah, I think that's exactly what it is. And the parallel with Mossadegh is incredible. I mean, it was the same kind of stunt that was pulled where the British and American intelligence operatives had agents, had contacts among the Iranian military and among the security services. And these people were behind a lot of what

happened in terms of how the Shah came to power. Are the British intelligence services bolder, more daring than the CIA? Having experienced contact with a number of MI6 agents during my career overseas, I would say that they kind of free boot more than most CIA officers. They essentially make a lot of their own decisions in the field. Their stations are a lot smaller, and their chiefs have a lot of authority, and they do do a lot of things sort of off the cuff. I once got in a lot of hot water at Fox by accusing MI6 of being part of a plot to spy on candidate Donald Trump. At the time I made the allegation, and you know,

personally, some of my sources, Trump was already the president. And after I'd been pilloried for about three or four, five or six weeks for MI6 agents, went to the Guardian of London and said that stuff that judge in New York is saying is true. We were the people involved in it. And I wasn't truly vindicated because the people that pilloried me didn't say, okay, you were right and we were wrong. They just backed down and went back into their holes after this was said. The reason I recount this is to ask you, it is not uncommon, is it, for the American CIA to use the Brits to do dirty work so that the Americans can claim they have clean hands? Well, again, I think it goes back to the fact that the Brits and Americans on these kinds of issues are hand in glove.

You know, they discuss these things. They have a macro view of what needs to be done. And insofar as some of the more suspect operations, like the blackening of Donald Trump's reputation by MI6, it's a question of the MI6 guy sitting in his office in London, the CIA chief of station comes in and says, hey, I need a favor. And it works the other way, too, vice versa. And it goes nowhere from there, and they do their best to cooperate. Would I be correct in saying that this happens particularly amongst the five I's, the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada? Yeah, the five eyes, of course, are particularly close, and they coordinate virtually everything they do.

And again, it's a fraternal relationship among the five eyes. The reference to eyes is not the letter I, but to the eyes in your head. That's right. All right, Switching gears, we're getting a little bit more philosophical, but I know this is your field and I know you've written about it. Why is the U.S. permanently at war? Well, I think there are a lot of different reasons. And obviously, I'm increasingly looking at money and how budgets are determined in Washington and how threats are created if they don't exactly exist to justify the flow of money. We see what's going on now in particular. None of these players, you know, six months or so ago, or actually 10 months or so ago now,

really threatened the United States in any serious way. But we contrived a situation where there was a perceived threat against the United States, which has never been challenged really by the media or by Congress. What conceivable threat is there to any person, property in the U.S. or the national security of the United States coming from Syria? Right, or Iran. Right. And now we are seeing stories suddenly magically appearing that, hey, these terrible Iranians are selling their low-tech, you know, drones to Russia. This is an act of war. And they're beating the drum for this sort of thing now. The Israelis and the U.S. have been meeting to take firmer

steps against Iran. And this is part of the narrative to support it. And that's what they do. It's a trick. Why do we have a continuous military occupation in countries that are 10,000 miles away and don't remotely threaten us, like Syria? We've certainly been there since the, well, since your years, since the George W. Bush administration, we've been in Syria. Why? What conceivable justification is there for the exposure of American lives and the loss of American taxpayer dollars by occupying a portion of Syria? Well, I think in this case, it's largely a symptom of the relationship with Israel. Israel sees Syria as a threat, as an enemy because of its closeness to Iran. And it's convenient to come up with an argument to explain why U.S. troops have to be there.

In this case, the argument was that it was ISIS that they were there to combat, which was basically fraudulent when it started. And it certainly has no validity whatsoever now. Do you accept the argument made by our friend Gerald Salenti and others that the initial stages of World War III are here, and that we are engaged in a proxy war in Ukraine against Russia? Well, I think that it's a question of perceptions. And while Biden prefers to say that we're not actively engaged in a serious way, apart from providing weapons to Ukraine, the reality is quite different. They're on the ground. There are advisors on the ground. And the United States, I think, plausibly is indeed fighting mostly a proxy war, but is also directly engaged. And the Russians are quite aware of this.

Paul Jay So when JFK mistakenly began introducing troops into South Vietnam, they were called advisors. We know how that ended up. It was up to 500,000 troops and 50,000 American boys dead. And the whole thing was a disaster. We are now seeing the phrase trucker advisor. What the devil is that? Well, I've seen both truckers and trackers, but I think it's the same thing. Essentially, they have finally become aware of the fact that the Ukrainians are taking us for a ride. A lot of these weapons that we're shipping

into there are going into the black market and disappearing. And God knows what's happening to the helicopters full of cash. So they finally figured this out. So they're sending they're intending to send troops or they already have into Ukraine to basically count the weapons coming in and make sure making sure they actually go to the soldiers and to see what's happening with the money. So these are trackers or truckers, depending on what point in the process you tie in. When the American Army begins training Ukraine technicians

at Fort Sill in Oklahoma to use the Patriot missile system. Will the Russians know from their sources the nature and extent of the training and when it's completed? Well, that's a good question. It depends on the extent to which, let me put it this way. I don't think they would find this information out from their contacts or their sources in the U.S. government. But the Ukrainians who are being trained, any number of them might well wind up as prisoners or as indeed sources of information for

the Russian army. And I think they will probably know pretty well exactly what the trading constitutes of. What kind of intel do you think President Biden is getting these days? I mean, every time you and I talk, every time our friend Scott Ritter and I talk, every time our friend Colonel Doug McGregor and I talk, things seem worse for the Ukrainians, better for the field who was only there for three months and put another one in. The one that he put in is not the one that the ultra-nationalists want. They want somebody who will turn Kiev into the Stone Age. age, why do you think or what would the intelligence tell Biden, President Biden, is the reason for this type of a summary change in command leadership of the Russian army? Well, at a minimum, of course, it is a lack of confidence in the previous leadership. And that merely can be a reflection of whether what a politician,

a political leader judges as sufficient progress is. And this is something quite often different than what a military commander perceives. So I would put it that way. And plus, I'm disturbed by a lot of these reports that you were seeing in the Western media, in the U.S. media in particular, because it's based on Ukrainian sources. The Ukrainians obviously have an agenda. They are running a very successful propaganda campaign to make it look like they're winning and the Russians are losing. And the New York Times and Washington Post are picking right up on it. The New York Times and Washington Post must be close to CIA. And that must be, your former colleagues must be feeding the Times and Post. Even my former colleagues at Fox are getting the same type of pro-Ukrainian, pro-American, anti-Russian, anti-President Putin propaganda, and they're running with it as if it were factual. There are, of course, websites that you and I and our colleagues look at which tell an entirely different view. But I'm interested in what the president hears. Does the president,

as far as you know, does the president hear the same nonsense that CIA is feeding to mainstream media? Do they give the president both sides? Do they give the president a truthful version of what's happening? Ukraine is going to lose. Russia is going to win. You want to reverse this? You're going to have to put troops on the ground. And we don't think, but it's just a political judgment, Mr. President, there's a stomach amongst the American people for that or in the Congress. What do you think, Phil? Well, I rather suspect that whoever is speaking to the president from cia or from the national security apparatus basically knows what the president wants to hear so i don't think the president gets an honest account of what the what is really going on on the ground and to a certain extent the u.s

intelligence maybe uh hasn't has on many occasions in the last 20 years failed. So it made me that the U.S. intelligence doesn't really have a good grasp for what is going on in reality. Is this unique to Joseph Biden that the intelligence community knows what he wants to hear and will tell him what he wants to hear? Or do they treat all presidents like this? Yeah, I think to a certain extent, all presidents are like that. But there are some presidents who have a political agenda, which makes them disinterested in what is coming from intelligence sources. For example, Bill Clinton never met with his director of CIA, the first director he appointed, for the whole time that poor man was in office. Never met with

him. So there are presidents who, for their political agenda in the United States and their view of what they want the world to look like for political reasons are not interested in listening. Bill Giraldi, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for monitoring all this stuff for us. Thanks for your observations about Brazil and for everything you've just discussed with us about CIA in general and Ukraine in particular. Well, we hope you'll come back and join us again soon. Oh, absolutely. Thank you very much for having me on again. Of course. Of course. and host of Judging Freedom, is doing a one-man show off-Broadway at Theater 555,

which, if you're in the New York City area, is 555 West 42nd Street. It's the next five Monday nights in a row. I got some surprisingly and gratifyingly rave reviews from the opening night, which was two nights ago. It's at 730. It is basically me discussing the Constitution, discussing current events, peppering it with humor,

telling stories about the most unforgettable characters I ever met, including the time Bernie Sanders kissed me in public, a crazy story, which I'll be happy to recount. Tickets are only $49. And if you go to the website, it's right there,

theater555.venuetix.com. And you're in the New York area. I guarantee you 70 minutes of constitutional law peppered with political humor. Come up and say hello to me afterwards. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.