Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable: Johnson & McGovern: CIA and Neocon Intransigence

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

INTEL Roundtable: Johnson & McGovern: CIA and Neocon IntransigenceSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, January 19th, 2024. Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson join us for our end of the week intelligence roundtable. My dear friends, thank you. You both do double duty, although this is one of the happiest times of the week. I don't know if it's because the three of us are together at the same time or because it's Friday afternoon. I'm staring at a foot of snow and it's still snowing out

and it's going to be in the single digits all weekend. So have some pity on me, those of you who live in the warmer, in the warmer climes. So we do have a lot to talk about, mainly Israel and Gaza and the Houthis. But I do want to start with some nonsense about Ukraine. As you both know, and as everybody watching us knows, Obahoy Ploy got together this week in Davos, and Secretary Blinken gave a series of interviews. We have an interview of him about Gaza,

which shows him at his hand-wringing worst. But I want to start on Ukraine, because in this interview, which is by Tom Friedman of The New York Times, he starts out by saying, are you ready for this? Putin has failed. So this is number 13, Chris. Watch this. It'll get us started. Putin has already failed in what he set out to do. He set out to erase Ukraine from the map, to eliminate its independence, to subsume it into Russia. That has failed, and it cannot and will not succeed. Second, Ukraine has not only stood up to the aggression over the past year, took back more than 50 percent of the territory that had been taken from it in February of 2022.

The last year, the last part of the last year has been challenging, but even then, something that got little notice. What Ukraine managed to part of the last year, has been challenging. But even then, something that got little notice, what Ukraine managed to do in the Black Sea, opening it up, pushing the Russian Navy back, and starting to get grain out to the world. It's been the breadbasket of the world. It's gone back to that as a result of actions it's taken. We'll start with you, Larry. I mean, how many errors can you count in that statement starting with putin has failed he tried to take all of ukraine and he was pushed back i mean so let's start big picture are these guys lying or are they grossly ill-informed no they're they're lying we have

a new word we should put in the dictionary, getting blinkened. I'll show you an example of blinkened. Ray McGovern has failed in his quest to become a black woman. Now, I've set up something that's absolutely untrue, and there's no way that it can be true. But because I say it, boy, that shows you how the russians have failed so you don't you don't even use any criteria to arrive at this definition of what constitutes failure so uh i suppose the fact that russia has killed uh a 10 to 1 ratio of ukrainians to every russian lost that they have steadily pushed back the ukrain Ukrainians in their much ballyhooed

counteroffensive. The Russians actually defeated that, and that they can bomb at will throughout Ukraine without Ukrainians' air defense able to stop them. Now, if that's the definition of success, I don't know too many people who would sign up for it. So, Ray, this reminds me of what the president said when he gave a very brief statement to just a half dozen members of the press in one of those small rooms outside the Oval Office where he says, if Putin takes Ukraine, he's going to go to NATO, and that's going to produce what none of us wants or expects, Russian boys versus American boys. It was one of his failed efforts to persuade Republicans in the House to give him the money that he wants to spend. I guess this is their absurd and misguided mantra that Putin's goal is to take Ukraine. It is so contrary to reason. The last thing in the world Putin would want is to govern a country of 47

million people that hates him and hates the Russians. Why would he want that? Judge, first I have to comment on the bobbing head of Tom Friedman. Now, if you bob your head five times in five seconds, then you're entitled to have it on your car. You know those bobbing heads at the back of the car? Yeah, the bobble heads. I thought the first thing you were going to say was to congratulate Larry on that incredible allegory that what Tony Blinken said was as absurd as Larry saying Ray has failed in his quest to become an African-American female. Yeah, well, you know, I wish it were funny.

I mean, these guys really need to watch our show, Judge? Is there any way that you can use your influence to ask these guys to get a real reality rather than alternative reality? We know it's watched in D.C. It's probably watched by your former colleagues to see what you're saying and what we're putting out there. And they're not happy with it. Jack is going to be on next week. Maybe he'll fess up on air as to who's watching it, but Tony Blinken is not going to change. And we have a lot more, but what he said yesterday about Ukraine or two days ago when Friedman interviewed him,

it was just ridiculous. It was so erroneous. Well, Larry is right. They're not telling the truth. Let's put it that way. You know, Blinken is the worst of them. I mean, witness the fact that he's featured in Time Magazine now as being the cat's pajamas, so to speak. You know, it wasn't but seven, well, more than seven weeks ago where he said, you know, I talked with the Israelis and they agreed to calm down when they start the offensive again. There's a clear path, Tony Lincoln's word, a clear path in place that the Israelis agreed to where there'd be a premium on protecting citizens, civilians, letting aid in and making humanitarian assistance available. Then they started right after the pause, and there was a clear path. Well, Tony, either you were lying or you're incredibly naive

when the Israelis tell you something. Take a look, Chris, at number 11. This is another part of that same interview with Tom Friedman. I happen to think that this is Tony Blinken at his hand-wringing worst about Gaza. One of the things you hear so often from people, one of the things you hear so often from people, given the high civilian casualties in Gaza, is does the United States, do Jewish lives matter more than Palestinian and Muslim lives,

Palestinian and Christian lives, given the incredible asymmetry in casualties? And I've been asked that. I want to give you a chance to respond to that. No. Period. For me, I think for so many of us, what we're seeing every single day in Gaza is gut-wrenching. And the suffering we're seeing among innocent men, women, and children breaks my heart. The question is, what is to be done? We've made judgments about how we thought we could be most effective in trying to shape this in ways to get more humanitarian assistance to people, to get better protections and minimize civilian casualties.

And at every step along the way, not only have we impressed upon Israel its responsibilities to do that, we've seen some progress in areas where, absent our engagement, I don't believe it would have happened. This is not a world leader, Larry. This is pathetic. Well, he lives up to the definition of a diplomat in the United States, which is someone who's paid to life for their country. And in this case, what is so disturbing about it is he acts like he's a third-party observer,

like a fan in the stands watching this horrible action going on in front of him. Golly, how's that happen? How can this be possible when he's the one that's enabling it? I mean, it's like watching someone dying from a fentanyl overdose and the pusher, the guy that sold him the drugs, is going, boy, that's terrible. How did that happen? That's Blinken.

Ray, he was in Switzerland when he made this statement. When the secretary of state travels. Does he receive some sort of intelligence briefing on a daily basis? Does he know damn well how many human beings were killed in Gaza since his last intelligence briefing? Yeah, Judge, he doesn't need intelligence to tell him that, but the answer is yes. I traveled with Secretary Shultz where he went, and I gave him the president's daily brief at the direction of President Reagan. So to the degree that intelligence people are telling the truth, he's advised that he's lying through his teeth. It's not at all clear to me that the powers that be, the Hoy Arastoy, what's her name?

The head of national intelligence, April Haynes, or even the head of the CIA, Burns, that they're telling him the truth. So, you know, if you tell the president or you tell the secretary of state what you want to hear, well, Blinken is the fly in the ointment. Blinken, let's remind ourselves, was responsible largely for the attack on Iraq because he wouldn't let Biden listen to people like Scott Ritter, myself, Larry, and others that said there were no weapons of mass destruction there. They kept us all out of there. And that thing was approved by Congress meretriciously, if I may use a fuller way to describe it.

Well, you know, that's a word that the real Professor McGovern would have used, your great law professor father at the great Fordham Law School. Does the State Department have its own intelligence branch or bureau or whatever you want to call it, or do they have to rely on the Defense Department and the CIA? No, they have the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, INR. They're staffed with analysts. They do not produce, the State Department's intelligence are the cables that are sent back from embassies overseas. So other than that, State Department doesn't have its own human source information.

They get that from CIA. They don't have intercepts of communications or emails, phone conversations that comes from NSA. But they do have analysts that make their own judgments. Every time I wrote a piece when I was an analyst working on Central America, I had to coordinate it with my INR counterpart. And she could weigh in and say, no, I disagree with this. And if we couldn't work out a compromise, I would run with my piece and she could submit a dissent. So, yes, they have it. I'd like to add something to that.

INR has an incredibly good. What does INR stand for? INR is the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. It's the State Department intelligence arm. Okay. They have had a wonderful record, so much so that they took violent, they took strong footnotes to the estimate of October 1st, 2002, which said that Iraq had all manner of weapons of mass destruction and had ties with Al-Qaeda. Tom Finger, who was the head of INR at the time, took many footnotes. Then they appointed him to be head of the Intelligence Council, which did an estimate on Iran, just as Bush and Cheney were

going to attack Iran. And what that estimate said, it said Iran stopped working on a nuclear weapon five years before 2007 and hasn't resumed work. Whoa, that took the lining right out from Bush and Cheney from their plans. Now, what I'm saying here is that they have been corrupted just like everybody else. And one token of that is that when they did this big, big assessment about Russian interference in the election of 2016, they cut INR out, they cut DIA out, and it was only the CIA, NSA, and who else? FBI.

That's what it comes down to it now does the CIA NSA or FBI ever give different reports to different people meaning would Tony Blinken get the same report that Joe Biden got or would they try and manipulate Blinken by giving him different information. Well, that's why they created the Director of National Intelligence. Avril Haines occupies that slot right now. She's supposed to be the clearinghouse to bring all those different information together to make sure there's some coherence, that they can't backdoor her, go around her, and provide their own analysis directly to a principal. So that's, in theory, that's in theory how it's supposed to work. Okay. And she supervises the president's daily brief, okay?

Right. So, and it's she who exactly a year ago said the Russians are running out of shells, the Russians have no indigenous capability to build shells. She got it wrong by 180 degrees. She meant the U.S. and NATO. I mean, hello? That's what she told the president. And the president said Russia is already lost. So, I mean, it's a clown show. Before we get into the expansion of the war by attacking the hoodies and Joe Biden's ridiculous statement about it yesterday. Here's number 17, Chris. Here's Benjamin Netanyahu using the controversial phrase, which if you used on the Columbia University campus while carrying a Palestinian flag, you'd be removed from the campus, from the river to the sea.

Watch this. For 30 years, I am very consistent and I'm saying something very simple. This conflict is not on the lack of a state of Palestinian, but the existence of the state, the Jewish state. Every area that we evacuate, we receive terrible terror against that. It happened in South Lebanon, in Gaza, and also Judea and Samaria, which we did it. And therefore, I clarify that in any other arrangement, any other arrangement. In the future, the state of Israel have to control on the entire area from the river to the sea. This is what happens when you have sovereignty. This truth I say to our American friends. And I also stopped the attempt to impose us a reality that will jeopardize us. A prime minister in Israel has to be able to say no, even to the best of friends, to say no when you need to and to say

yes when you can. Can the president of the United States say no to his best of friends in Israel. Larry? Yeah, he should. I mean, look, Blinken and Biden can stop this now. All they have to do is call Netanyahu and say, hey, you're going to tell us no? We're telling you no. No more military

supplies coming. We're withholding the economic aid, and good luck. But Netany know, Netanyahu knows that they won't do that. It's a political year. The Jewish political donors that are a big source of money for the Democrat Party would have immediately killed Biden and Biden wants to survive politically. And so it's just, we end up enabling this entire behavior. And that's why we're complicit in the genocide that's taking place in Palestine. So the defense minister of Israel talks about attacking Hezbollah.

The president of the United States gave a ridiculous statement, we'll run it in a minute, about attacking the Houthis. Where is this war going, Ray? It all depends on how much spine we can implant in Joe Biden. It depends on us. That's it. We are enabling the genocide. And there is no way that the Israelis would take on Hezbollah unless they decided that we would have to intervene militarily to help them. That's the big deal. And can they take on and beat Hezbollah without a full-fledged, on-the-ground American troop support, Ray?

Well, on the ground is another matter, but we have all these other capabilities. And, you know, watch for another aircraft carrier to go back into that area or to be diverted to that area. Then we'll see what's going to happen. But they can't take on, they've already lost to Hezbollah in the past without our support. So if they do that again, they'll need our support, I fear, for what Biden and Blinken will do. Chris, play the clip about where President Biden is asking if the bomb against the Houthis is working. Now, it's very brief, and his voice is very soft, so we'll play it twice. Take a listen to this.

Are the airstrikes in Yemen working? Well, when you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes. Play it again. Are the airstrikes in Yemen working? Well, when you say working, are they stopping the Houthis?

No. Are they going to continue? Yes. So by answering, are they stopping the Houthis? No, Larry. Is he revealing classified material? And by saying they don't work, but we're going to keep doing them, is he making any sense?

Yeah, well, number one, he's not revealing any classified information. You know, Helen Keller could see this one coming. The reality is when he's acknowledging that, well, yeah, we're bombing all these sites, but they're movable sites. That's why I posted it in my blog at Sonar 21 last night. I call it, this is the Houthi version of the Thomas Crown Affair. And if anybody remembers the movie with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Rousseau, where Pierce Brosnan walks into the museum, he's in a black wool coat, puts on a bowler hat, has a briefcase and starts walking around. The cops are trying to catch him. Except all of a sudden,

there are like 60 other guys dressed just like him. And the cops can't figure out which one's which and where are the briefcases. That's exactly what the United States is trying to do with these mobile missiles. We can't find them. And once we think we find them and we blow it up, and then, well, then the Houthis fire back at us.

The bottom line is the Houthis have more missiles and drones than we have to stop them. And we're going to run out of Aegis missiles or the Tomahawk cruise missiles. We've got a limited inventory of those. So this is just a recipe for making America look really stupid and weak. I'm going to ask you both in a second if this is an intentional expansion of the war. We all know for every action, there's a reaction.

But before we do, we just found the clip of Averill Hayaines that Ray was talking about, that the Russians are running out of ammo. So just to lighten things up for a second, we'll play it now. How quickly is Russia burning through its military stockpiles of munition? I think I can give you precise numbers in this forum, but quite quickly. I mean, it's really pretty extraordinary. And our own sense is that they are not capable of indigenously producing what they are expending at this stage. So that is going to be a challenge. And that's why you see them going to other countries effectively to try to get ammunition. And of course, you know, we've indicated that their precision munitions are

running out much faster in many respects. They have a lot of stockpiles, how viable those stockpiles are, how much they have, what they can use in different conflicts are obviously all questions that we look at quite carefully with our allies and partners. Chief Intelligence Official of the Government of the United States of America, Ray McGovern, is she a bald-faced liar or is she just ignorant? I can't call her a liar. Maybe she's been told that by the people appointed by Bill Burns and those folks. I mean, you know, it's so bad. When you think about taking on the hoochies, right? Okay. There should be a national intelligence estimate where various people are asked to pronounce on what's going to happen the next day if they take on the hooties. That has not been done.

None of those things have been done since 2007 when the estimate came up with the wrong answer, namely that Iran has not been working on a nuclear weapon since 2002 and is not decided to do that. So you get the wrong answer, then you get marginalized. And with Afghanistan, with Iraq, with the rest of it, there have been no national intelligence estimates that I know of. And so Blinken is flying blind, and so is Biden. Larry, correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah, Lars, I'm just going to point out, actually, I think Avril Haines was given an intelligence report, only it was about the United States, and she thought it said Russia. So that's why she got confused. How likely is it, I ask you both the same question, that this war expands and other state actors get involved? The Israelis are thinking about putting troops into Egypt at that so-called Philadelphia corridor. The Israelis are thinking of entering Lebanon. And Joe Biden is obliging these people by attacking the Houthis. What is the likelihood that another state actor enters this arena, a state actor with a serious military? Well, I think it's still within the realm of possibility, but here's what's going to stop us.

Number one, DOD, despite, you know, Lloyd Austin missing, Austin missing, God knows where he is. They're going to put him in the book of Where's Waldo. But the problem we've got is the DOD's recognizing that, for example, in 2022, we only had 4,000 Tomahawk missiles, only 4,000. And Raytheon can't produce them at a rate of, say, 100 a week or 100 a month. So they've got that limited amount. Some of those have been used in other places, and some of them have been used out here. And so they're running down, and they've got to keep some in reserve for contingencies about possibly going to war with China. So the White House, yes, they definitely want to attack Iran. They want to get into that. But the White House, yes, they definitely, they want to attack Iran. They

want to get into that. But the reality is out of the 11 aircraft carriers, I think Doug McGregor made this point on your show, out of the 11 aircraft carriers that the United States has, only four are actually able to go to sea. And part of that is just, we don't have the crew, we don't have the weaponry. And so we have these grandiose ideas about taking on the world. But basically, we're running out of breath just trying to fight the Houthis. Does Congress know what you just said? Congress just gave Lloyd Austin $186 billion to spend in the next 12 months. He's got 13 aircraft carriers and only four of them work?

Yeah. Yeah. Right. I want to comment on what my major fear is with respect to what Larry was saying. Iran is the name of the game. Okay. The Israelis and the neocons in our government see this as a golden chance to go after Iran, okay? Now, Iran is really smart. They're not going to rise to that bait. So what's

going to happen? The Israelis are going to do it for them. False flag attack, U.S. forces or U.S. interests attack blamed on Iran, and Obama, Biden, and Blinken will have no other recourse but to tell Austin, who will salute smartly, go after these guys. They can't be allowed to threaten our ally in quotes, Israel. Chris, do we have Senator Graham? I don't know if you've seen this. It's ridiculous. But this is the advice of Senator, and I'm sorry, I know a lot of our fans can't stand it when Graham comes on,

but this is the advice of Senator Graham to Joe Biden with respect to Iran. Listen to this insanity. Secretary Austin and the Biden administration is failing our troops in the field. I admire him. INSANITY. SECRETARY AUSTIN AND THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IS FAILING OUR TROOPS IN THE FIELD. I ADMIRE HIM. HE'S A PATRIOT, BUT HE'S NOT DOING A GOOD JOB PROTECTING THE SOLDIERS. I ASKED HIM A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO, JOY, WHAT YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT. IS THERE A RED LINE? WOULD YOU TELL OUR ENEMIES PUBLICLY THAT IF YOU KILL AN AMERICAN, WE'RE COMING AFTER YOU?

WITHOUT IRAN, THERE ARE NO HOOTIES. THE HOOTIES ARE COMPLETELY BACKED BY IRAN. I'VE BEEN SAYING FOR SIX MONTHS NOW, HIT IRAN. you. Without Iran, there are no hoodies. The hoodies are completely backed by Iran. I've been saying for six months now, hit Iran. They have oil fields out in the open. They have the Revolutionary Guard headquarters you can see from space. Blow it off the map. What would happen if Joe Biden accepted that advice, Larry? Well, number one, where's the authorization for use of military force? There is no legal basis in which Joe Biden can launch those attacks in Yemen.

He needs to go to Congress and get the approval. And in fact, from just a political standpoint, it is completely stupid of Biden and Blinken to do this on their own. Because if you go and get Congress to give you the thumbs up like Bush did, George W. Bush did going into Iraq, at least when it goes sour, when you hit the hole in the road and it becomes a disaster, at least you don't have to shoulder all the blame yourself. And so, you know, Graham, step up, propose it in Congress. Let's get all the members of Congress on board wanting to send some more boys and girls to targets in Pakistan and what's an area called Balochistan. The Balochistan area was a direct message to the CIA because the CIA and the intelligence organizations, the DOD, have had longstanding relations with those Baloch.

The Baloch were involved with Operation Eagle Claw back in 1980, 1979, the effort to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran. So, and going after Erbil, they were killing Mossad agents. And going into Syria, they were going after British agents. So they were telling the Brits and the Israelis and the United States, you want to keep coming at us? Bring it on. We're going to fight back. Ray, I'll give you the last word. Here's an intelligence estimate on what happens if the Biden and Blinken administration goes ahead and attacks Iran. Short answer, it's the end of Israel. Iran doesn't need any nuclear weapons. It has an incredible inventory of precise guided missiles and other things, and so does Hezbollah and others. It will be the end of Israel. Okay, now, Biden needs to know that. Whether Averill Haynes is smart enough to tell him that, that's the question. I don't think she is wow uh doug mcgregor agrees uh with both of you and what you each said uh guys thank you very much a great week thank you for all your time uh i think

we're all back together but separately as usual on uh on monday morning have a great weekend you won't have to worry about snow the way i do go get a hot buttered rum. There you go. All the best, my friends. Have a great weekend. Take care. You too. All of our regulars back for us next week, my dear friends. Thank you for a great week. Thank you for watching. Thank you for the subscriptions. Thank you for the faith you show in the program. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thanks for watching!