Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable w/ John & McGovern: Intel Wrap Up

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

INTEL Roundtable w/ John & McGovern: Intel Wrap UpSee 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, February 16th, 2024. It's Friday. It's Friday afternoon here on the East Coast. It's the end of the day, the end of the week, time for the ever popular Intelligence Community Roundtable with my dear friends and colleagues, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Larry, Ray, welcome here, guys. It's always a pleasure. As we speak, the Congress of the United States is getting the hell out of town for two weeks. The president of the United States is not very happy about it. The Senate has voted to authorize, but we'll talk just about Ukraine, money to Israel and Taiwan and Gaza. But the harsh dispute seems to be the $61 billion to Ukraine. So Larry, to you first, how depleted is the Ukraine

military? What would they even do with this $61 billion? Isn't it equipment that would take a long time to get there? I know I'm asking you a lot of questions at once. I want you to take the ball and run with it. Do they even have the knowledge to operate this equipment? Yes, yes, yes, and no.

So to get... Look, even if the equipment could get there next week or within three weeks, they don't have the personnel to operate. But the reality of the United States industrial situation is, even if Congress appropriates the money, it's still going to take time to work through the system and then for it actually to be produced and rolled out. So you've got a multitude of problems that they don't have enough trained soldiers to use it. They don't have enough recruits in the pipeline that they could prepare to use it. And the West is basically broken in terms of its ability to provide artillery shells, HIMARS missiles, Patriot batteries, you know, just go down the list. We've exhausted our own stockpiles. And it's not like there's some factories there standing up ready to go into operation. So as all of this is taking place, the Ukrainian front is collapsing. They are in full-fledged retreat right now.

It's an utter debacle. They're leaving behind wounded men. There's a video out on Telegram of a Ukrainian woman talking to her husband. And her husband has said, look, my legs have been shot. I can't move. And I've got two other friends. They've abandoned us. They've abandoned us. They've left us, which is probably good news because at least they'll get decent treatment.

They get better medical treatment from the Russians than they would from the Ukrainians. Ray, how does the intelligence community take this? I mean, are there CIA operations people on the ground armed? Does the CIA have a budget? Does the CIA have the type of military equipment that President Biden wants the Congress to authorize of the DOD to send to Ukraine? I mean, stated differently, can the CIA run a bypass around around Congress? Not this time. The need is too great. Larry is right. When Biden said in July, I think it was July 13th, that Putin had already lost, actually he meant we have already lost. I mean, he should have been brief to say we had already lost because it was

already clear then that the spring offensive, the summer offensive had piddled out. So we have now as a situation where not only are they taking on the chin around Adyayevka, a key stronghold, the Russians are pretty much ready to go all the way to the Dnieper River. I, for one, don't think they'll do that. I think they'll just a trip, a trip, and a trip. They'll go a little bit farther, hoping that some sane minds in Kiev, if not in Washington, will say, all right, enough, enough. Okay. And particularly now that the House has gone home without approving that $60 billion more for Ukraine.

Now, Larry Wilkerson and I wrote an op-ed about this to advise Congress that, you know, this is a fool's errand. Russia has the will and the means to prevent anything that the Ukrainians want to do to save themselves so that they can be a pawn against Russia. We shopped that thing around for a whole week. It's produced now on Consortium News. Suffice it to say that there seemed to be a ban in mainstream media to give a voice to Larry Wilkerson, who used to be chief of staff in the State Department, and to me, who used to be president. So anyway, it's out there now in consortium news. Let me just quote one thing from it, because we pointed back to Obama, who had a relatively sensible policy toward this. He said, no, I'm not going to give

lethal arms to Ukraine because that would mislead them into thinking that they could prevail in a war against a much stronger Russia. And then one of his minions, who was deputy secretary of state at the time, said, and I quote, this is interesting, you're playing on the military terrain of Ukraine. You're playing to Russia's strength because Russia is right next door. You just looked at the map, I guess. It has a huge amount of military equipment and military force right on the border. Anything we did as countries in terms of equipment, military equipment for Ukraine, is likely to be matched and then doubled and then tripled and quadrupled by Russia, period, end quote. Who was that then Deputy Secretary of State

who made those comments, Ray McGovern. I'm glad you asked that question. It was Anthony J. Blinken. The same Anthony J. Blinken that's now the Secretary of State of the United States. Yeah, who now thought it was a great idea to arm Ukraine. I can't beat this guy. I mean, Biden was right there at Obama's elbow. I mean, Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, she was dead set against lethal weaponry to Ukraine. And she said so at a press conference with Obama in Washington.

A correspondent said, oh, do you think we would give lethal weaponry to Ukraine? And she jumped right in before Obama could respond. And she says, ain't this schlicks today? Which means that's a lousy idea. OK, she changed her mind, too. So, you know, it really depends on who the president is and what the vassals will do in answer to what the president decides to do. Biden thought he could do magic. And of course, it's come to no good end, as the Chinese used to say. Larry, I want to play a clip for you from, or for both of us, for all three of us,

from the president a few minutes ago, bemoaning the two-week uh vacation but listen to the question uh that uh provokes his bemoaning congress going on a two-week vacation because i want to ask you about it number two chris anything you can do to get ammunition to the ukrainians without a supplemental from congress no but it's about time they step up, don't you think? Instead of going on a two-week vacation. Two weeks. They're walking away. Two weeks. What are they thinking?

My God. This is bizarre. And it's just reinforcing all the concern and almost, I won't say panic, but real concern about the United States being a reliable ally. This is outrageous. So when the questioner, Larry, asked him if there's anything he could do, I thought, hmm, Tony Blinken signed a statement, the same Tony Blinken that was a young Tony Blinken when Ray quoted him. Tony Blinken signed a statement under oath that it was a matter of an emergency national security that the Treasury Department bypassed the Congress and send Israel $200 million in cash, even though the Constitution says no money shall be spent except that which is directly appropriated by Congress and recorded in a public journal. I think Tony Blinken committed

a crime of perjury by swearing under oath it was a matter of American national security. Question, why don't they do that to Ukraine? a 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 to do with U.S. security. Russia is not going to attack us. Russia has no intention of attacking us. The only country that's operating on another country's border when threatening it is the United States operating by proxy on Russia's border.

I mean, candidly, if Russia was doing what we're doing in Ukraine, but was doing it in Mexico or in Canada, we would be three alarm fire and we would be arming our nukes and we would be preparing for war because we would view it as an act of war. Thank God the Russians have shown some restraint and patience. So no, this is, it's irrelevant. Ukraine has lost. It's just dead man walking, just like the chicken without its head. It can run around for a little bit. You know, it's not going to squawk much, but ultimately it's just going to fall over. Ukraine is toast. Stick a fork in it.

Let's talk for a few minutes about Alexei Navalny. I mean, what was he, Larry? Was he CIA? Was he MI6? What was he? Or was he just a Russian who had the courage or craziness to try and take on Vladimir Putin? He's an irrelevancy. He was something that was used by Western intelligence as a wedge to try to portray Putin as some dictator, some tyrant. How rich and ironic it is that they're weeping for the loss of Navalny. Oh, my God, look how Putin prosecutes his political opponents on the same day that some judge in of Republicans in jail for entering the Capitol, they did not cause damage, they did not attack police,

but for the mere act of, quote, trespassing on the people's house, which belongs to them, they're in jail. The police officer that shot and killed Ashley Babbitt, an unarmed woman and veteran of the Air Force. So what we've had happen in the United States over the course of the last four years, the United States has lost all moral standing to criticize any other country about political oppression and abuse of human rights. Look in the damn mirror. Fix ourselves first. Let the Russians take care of human rights. Look in the damn mirror, fix ourselves first, let the Russians take care of the Russians. I'm thinking, Ray, of Gonzalo Lira,

an American citizen who died in a Ukrainian prison. Did the mainstream media and all the people that are crying tears for Navalny all throughout the day today, lift a finger, utter a word for their fellow American who died at the hands of the security forces for Ukraine? The answer to that is no, Judge, and it's a lamentable no. There was a time when citizenship counted.

Civis Romanis Romanus sum, said St. Paul, and they were frightened and sent them right to Rome. He was a Roman citizen, and they respected that. They don't want to get in trouble. Now, civis Americanus sum, forget about it. Gonzalo Lira was not doing what the U.S. wants him to do. And so he was not even given, as far as I know, the kind of representation by the embassy that he was due. He was a joint Chilean and American citizen.

The Chileans tried to help him. The Americans did not. Here's President Biden talking about the death of Mr. Navalny. And, well, you can try and figure out what he's saying. He's a little bit more coherent in this presser than he's been in the past, but this is a wild statement. Number five. You warned Vladimir Putin when you were in Geneva of devastating consequences if Navalny died in Russian custody. What consequences should he and Russia face? That was three years ago. In the meantime, they faced a hell of a lot of consequences. They've lost and or had wounded over 350,000 Russian soldiers. They've made them to a position where they've been subjected to great sanctions across the board.

And we're contemplating what else could be done. But what we were talking about at the time, there were no actions being taken against Russia. And look at all that's transpired since then. All right, Ray, I know you can't get into his brain, but what was he talking about? And we're contemplating other things that can be done. I don't know, Judge. I think we're making it up as he went along, as his familiar tactics here, one has to be really strong against the Russians because, as you know, Judge, irony. As you know, Judge, the Russians want to take over not only Ukraine but Poland and the Baltic states.

If they're not stopped in Ukraine, they'll go all the way to the English channel, for God's sake. Now, that's what the British would call rubbish, okay? Nobody thinks that, nobody in their sane mind. And yet, when President Trump says, oh, wow, if you don't pay up and Russia attacks you, we're not going to defend you. Well, what kind of a premise is that? If Russia attacks you, why? I've been in Poland.

I've been in the Baltic. I don't know. Putin himself said, put your move. Why would I ever want to go into Poland or the Baltic states? It's crazy on its face. So this whole business, this hullabaloo about Trump saying, oh, NATO is no good. Well, NATO is no good. It's got no fighting force and it's lost miserably in Ukraine.

And that's going to become very apparent in the next few weeks during the heat of the presidential campaign. It's going to hurt Biden. I don't think Biden's going to even last to run as the Democratic candidate. Larry, here's President Biden commenting on these very matters that Ray talked about. Number nine, Chris. We have to realize what we're dealing with with Putin. All of us should reject the dangerous statements made by the previous president that invited Russia to invade our NATO allies if they weren't paying up. He said if an ally did not pay their dues, he'd encourage Russia to, quote,

do whatever the hell they want. I guess I should clear my mind here a little bit and not say what I'm really thinking. But let me be clear. This is an outrageous thing for a president to say. I can't fathom. I can't fathom. From Truman on, they're rolling over in their graves hearingom. From Truman on, they're rolling over in their graves hearing this. From Truman on, they're rolling over in their graves because Trump wants to leave NATO, Larry.

Yeah, it's all been taken completely out of context. I mean, look, Trump is joking. He's trying to make the point. And let's put it in very simple terms. Ask any American, are you willing to have your son and daughter go die in Poland or Germany to defend them if they're not willing to pay their amount to defend themselves? Very simple. And I don't know if too many Americans would say, well, yeah, yeah, I'll send my kid. No, but it is based entirely on a false premise.

Russia is not going to invade Poland or Germany or France or the United Kingdom or any other country in the NATO sphere. The only reason they're in Ukraine is because the United States and Great Britain launched a coup against an elected president in 2014 in Ukraine, overthrew the democratically elected president, installed a leader that was beholden to the West, and then launched an attack on Russian-speaking populace in the Donbass. That's what happened. It was that order, that sequence. It was only in response to that now that Russia has finally said, enough, we're going to destroy this Western proxy army and their Nazi ideology. We're not going to put up with it.

Ray, Tucker Carlson has commented that the American intelligence community did its best to dissuade him or deter him from his interview with President Putin. He stated publicly that they hacked his computer and leaked his text messages and emails to the New York Times and other favored media outlets, not Fox, but other favored media outlets. Would the CIA have been able to penetrate the Kremlin to such an extent that they would be aware of President Putin's preparation for that interview? Stated differently, how deep into the presidency of Russia does the CIA reach? My guess is that not very deep. The Russians are masters at counterintelligence and at constructing cyber things that actually cannot be penetrated. Now, I could be wrong, but the bottom line here, Judge, as I see it, is that they didn't need any Kremlin communications. All they needed to do was monitor Tucker Carlson's people.

Now, there's a Fourth Amendment against that. Yes. Probably the CIA didn't do it, but the NSA could do that by enlisting the help of the other four of the five I's, the Brits, the Australians, the New Zealand, or the Canadians. So it's all doable. I think you can take it on face value. Now, Putin was not completely satisfied with getting a chance to say the things he wanted to say to Tucker. And so he had a recent, two days ago, he said,

look, supplementary kind of, and he said, and he was asked, you know, who do you prefer, Biden or Trump? Now, this is interesting, okay? Take my word for it. He said, well, you know, we prefer somebody who's predictable, who's been around as a been accomplished politician, somebody who's predictable. So we would prefer Biden. He didn't say this, but despite his mental incapacity. Now, what does that mean? Why do I mention that here? Because I've been saying since 2015, 2016, that this whole business, that the Kremlin or any Russian leader would prefer an unpredictable person like Trump over somebody else was ridiculous on its face.

And so now they have, thanks to Matt Taibbi and others, they're unraveling the whole thing. It was all made up, this whole business of Russiagate, this whole business about Trump, Trump and the Russians colluding and being responsible for Trump getting four years and dear Hillary getting nothing, you know. Well, that's all washing out now. And the problem is, none of my old friends who told me I was crazy that I was in Trump's pocket have apologized. I'm going to keep asking them to apologize. I wonder if the people who came down on me like a ton of bricks will apologize when in reliance on some people that you know well, Larry, in March. Put Larry and Ray back, please. Chris, put Larry and Ray back on. There you go. Some people that you know well advised that the CIA had gone to the GCHQ,

the British domestic spying outfit, and used them to spy on Canada Trump. Of course, when I said that, all hell broke loose. You backed me up, and we've pretty much been vindicated by Matt Taibbi and his colleague. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I knew about this thanks to a friend who was very senior in the intelligence community who flagged it to me in 2016, around November, what was going on. So, and that this thing had been, and then I heard from another friend who was an SIS, a senior guy on the operations side of the house

that told me that it was in the summer of 2015 that John Brennan, working on behalf of Hillary Clinton's campaign, started collecting against all the presidential candidates at that time. John Brennan was the head of the CIA at that point. He wasn't a campaign official for her. Right. So he was head of the CIA, but they were collecting on Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Bernie Sanders. And it was all to get

dirt dug up that Hillary could use against whoever was going to be the nominee. But when it became clear that Trump was in the lead and likely to win, that's when they really focused in and went, they went full scale. I mean, it was not a one thing. It was multiple avenues of attack, everything from crediting the Russians for the leaks of the DNC emails, which were done by Seth Rich, to the George Papadopoulos and Page as being agents of Putin that were influencing Trump to Operation Hurricane Cross. I mean, across the board. This was a massive CIA, FBI operation to try to destroy President Trump. And they ended up handcuffing him and keeping his administration from being able to do much of what it could have done in improving relations with Russia. Because anything that Trump tried to do that would be reasonable and rational in dealing with Russia as an equal was inhibited because it was politically viewed as a liability.

Ray, do you know of instances in which the CIA asked its British counterparts to spy on Americans in America? Sure, yeah. During the lead up to the war in Iraq, there was a memorandum sent out by a major chief of NSA to GCHQ. And one of our Sam Adams awardees named Catherine Gunn saw it. And what it says was, we need the UN to bless this operation, UK, US operation against Saddam Hussein. And so we want to surge all our capabilities against existing members of the UN Security Council so that we can get a result favorable to the United States. In other words, spy on foreign diplomats in New York.

Yeah, or on Americans. I mean, the British can spy on Americans. This is an American day. So anyway. Wait a minute, guys. I thought the purpose of the intelligence community was to protect us from foreign spies, Larry Johnson. Yeah, that guy you fooled. Listen, it's

out of control. I mean, really, the intelligence community has fallen so far away from what it was supposed to be. And, you know, as you've discussed several times on your show with respect to the comments made in an op-ed by Harry Truman that wound up only in the Independence Examiner years ago after the Washington Post took it down,

he realized that he'd created a Frankenstein, that instead of recruiting spies overseas to tell us secrets and then using that information to brief the president, you know, sort of give him a look at the poker hand of the other team, we created a malevolent force that is out trying to overthrow governments. And guess what? They turned it around and used it here at home, domestically. Judge, one of the questions here is when Comey and Brennan and their satraps had decided to do this, how the hell did they think they could get away with it? Yeah.

Now, we have the answer to that. It's in Comey's book. he spoke. I forget what page, but he says, quote, we were operating in an environment in which Hillary Rodham Clinton was sure to be the next president. That's the environment you're going to be promoted. Maybe you'll become attorney general, for God's sake. You're not going to get put in jail, which is what might happen now if this plays out in a justice way the way it should. When the Congress comes back from its two-week break, it will be voting on an extension of Section 702 of the FISA law.

702 allows warrantless spying in direct defiance of the fourth amendment on foreign persons and the americans with whom they communicate could be my cousin in florence it could be a bookseller uh in london and it allows warrantless spying on the americans with whom those americans communicate It's an end run around the Fourth Amendment. In order to scare members of Congress into voting in favor of this, Congressman Turner of Ohio, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, announced that he had something that he learned that was very, very important and very serious in matters of national security. And he wanted to share it with the other members of Congress in some

secret way. Turns out it was nothing. It turns out this was a stunt to scare members of Congress to vote in favor of extending 702. Joe Biden addressed this. This is number four. Chris did an unbelievable job of monitoring this press conference. It's just an hour and a half old. Here is Joe Biden on, don't worry, there's no Russian nuclear threat coming to us. He doesn't mention Congressman Turner by name, but this was Turner's implication. Fortunately, members of the House saw right through it, and he might lose his seat as the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and his national security clearance over it. But number four, here's Joe Biden on this. Sir, how concerned are you about the anti-satellite capability that Russia is developing, and what is your

administration planning to do in response? First of all, there is no nuclear threat to the people of America or anywhere else in the world with what Russia is doing at the moment, number one. Number two, anything that they're doing or they will do relates to satellites in space and damaging those satellites potentially. Number three, there is no evidence that they have made a decision to go forward with doing anything in space either. So what we found out, there was a capacity to launch a system in the space that could theoretically do something that was damaging. Hadn't happened yet. And my hope is it will not. So he started tipping his hand as to what this thing, Congressman Turner, was talking about in order to allay people's anxieties. Larry, is there any depth to which

the Congress will not sink when it wants to trash the Fourth Amendment? Well, short answer, no. But Judge, here's what's crazy about all this. The Russians do have that capability. They've had it for about three years. Some of this information is six years old. The Russians have an air defense system already that can defeat intercontinental ballistic missiles and anything fired from outer space. They've already put into space a particular satellite that can actually fly up to our talent keyhole satellites, go around it, destroy it if necessary, and then fly off. They've already done it. They've already tested it. So you were correct that what Turner was doing

was trying to scaremonger people. But Biden's lying. He's absolutely lying on all of the things that he said. That's just not true. Russia absolutely has that capability. It's been deployed for quite a while. We just got our heads stuck in the sand. And I'm not saying that in order to, that we should gin up an arms race against them. But the reason Russia has that capability is because we, the United States, walked away from the anti-ballistic missile treaty under George W. Bush in 2002. And then under Donald Trump walked away from the INF treaty, which led the Russians to say, okay, forget about START. And they've been free to develop whatever they want, and they are developing it, for God's sake.

Now, Judge, the missile in question is alleged to have had the capability to have a nuclear explosion which would destroy satellites in orbit. Now, I've talked to the experts on this. Would a nuclear explosion destroy all the satellites in orbit? And the answer is yes, it would. But how about our satellite? Well, we haven't refined them to distinguish between our satellites and Russian satellites yet. I mean, it's crazy, you know.

It's really crazy. And that's what the – no, it was not only the 703 thing, I think, but it was also the aid to Ukraine thing. I mean, here's – this congressman is really rabid that we need to save Ukraine. And, you know, if you could say the Russians are going to destroy all our satellites, all the more so is Putin evil. And all the more so can we not leave the Ukrainians in lurch. Gentlemen, thank you very much. A great, great conversation during the course of which we covered much ground. And the two of you got very passionate about it. And Ray, of course, dips into his multilingual explanations of all these things, but much appreciated.

Another great week. I love starting the week out with each of you on Monday morning and ending it with both of you together on Friday afternoons. And the viewers love it as well. Great weekend, guys. We'll see you it as well. Great weekend, guys. We'll see you both on Monday. Thank you, Judge. Thank you.

Thank you all the best. Thank you, my dear friends, for another extraordinary week. Our numbers are going through the roof thanks to your enjoyment and fascination with what we're able to put on air. We will continue to do so. We will have all of our regulars for you next week.

Have a great weekend. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.