Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap 9-JAN

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

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government? What if Jefferson was right? What if that government is best, which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Friday, January 9th, 2006. It's the end of the day, the end of the week, our favorite segment of the year. My dear friends, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern doing their double duty. It's the Intelligence Community Roundtable. Gentlemen, welcome here. Thank you for all of your time, all of your dedication to this show. Ray, to you first. The day before the government invaded Venezuela, a culmination we

now know of a six-month multi-billion dollar project. The chief legal intelligence officer of the United States of America, Tulsi Gabbard, was on a beach in Hawaii posting pictures of herself. We now know she was totally excluded from the planning and the project. Should she resign? Well, Tulsi doesn't need any advice for me as to whether she should resign or not. I've already told her to resign about two times in the past. The point here, Judge, is that the substantive people in the intelligence community, and she is, of course, head of all intelligence, have been cut out of this thing. You know, we haven't learned anything since the Bay of Pigs in 1961,

God's sake, April 1961, when John Kennedy was aghast at all the advice he was getting, it all we have to do is land these guys on the beach, and Castro will be overthrown by a popular uprising. He's very, very unstable, his government will fall, okay? So what did JFK do? He said, hey, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., you're a history guy, but could you spend two months looking at Who the hell gave me that advice? And it turned out to be the analysts had been totally excluded. Ray Klein, for whom I worked later. The head of the Directorate for Intelligence was completely held out.

They didn't know what the president was telling. It was the operations guys that were telling him these things. Now, you had Raffcliffe, and he's heading the operations guys. The people that overthrow governments and tortured people were in asked. to do so. So what Tulsi has is a titular title where she is supposed to have access to covert action plans, have a chance to weigh in on them, and then to critique them after they're over, she'd been cut out. Why? Because she says odd things like Iran stopped working on a nuclear weapon at the end of 2003 and has not resumed work on a nuclear weapon. She's kind of crazy because sometimes

she tells the truth. Larry, one of the other odd things that she said, which obviously upset the president, and I guess he didn't look at the website of his own Drug Enforcement Administration, because it said the same thing, is that no drugs are coming into the United States of any significance from Venezuela.

Yeah, actually, that's not accurate. And if you go back and look at the State Department, Inkser, it's published every year, the International Narcotics Control, strategy report. It has consistently reported over the last 10 to 12 years that about 40%

of cocaine and marijuana transits Venezuela comes into the United States or goes to Europe. Now, the key thing in there is there's not fentanyl. Remember, the entire narrative of this, oh, we've got to stop this narco-terrorism

because they're killing Americans. What's killing Americans is the fentanyl which is coming out of Mexico. So, I mean, this is where you get half truth, half not. But, you know, the claim that there were no drugs coming. But to Tulsi, how can she keep her job after they humiliated her like this? Hey, must like the paycheck. I mean, I agree.

It is, it's embarrassing that she came out after, you know, after having made previous comments about we don't, we're not going to engage in regime change anymore. Then we were engaging in regime change. And this, look, this regime change was facilitated by an intelligence asset, but it's one not controlled by the CIA. It is by one of the other three-letter agencies. And this individual played a critical role in turning off the air defense systems and enabling the U.S. Special Operations Forces to fly in and complete full moonlight. You never want to do that if you're carrying out a special ops mission. if you can avoid it.

The only time you'd do that is if there was a life and death issue, or you know, that the situation had been prearranged for you to get in and get out without having to worry. So this is, she has shamed herself. Let me play to you a short Q&A that I put to Tucker Carlson, because he's a personal friend of hers. What he says is somewhat remarkable

and also somewhat personal, but he says it's public knowledge, but you'll hear it. Chris? Anybody who descends from the program is going to be marginalized at best, but I think Tulsi's a very scrappy person with true integrity, so I'm

rooting for her. I wish we had a bunch more like her. But boy, it just makes you, it just makes you sad. You're like, what Tulsi Gabbard is nothing to be ashamed of. Tulsi Gabbard has no weird agenda. Tulsi Gabbard is the poorest famous person I have ever met in my entire life. As far as I know, Tulsi Gabbard doesn't own a house because she's never made

enough money to own a house. And money is the measure. And a lot of these people are incredibly rich relative to their skill. Like there are a lot of dumb people. Bill Ackman is worth like $8 billion. He's an idiot. Like how did that happen? How did Barry Weiss get control of CBS News? She's an idiot. You know what I mean? There's like a lot of that. And it's not just those two. Trust me. There's a lot of that. And then the flip side is somebody like Tulsi, who's so smart. so dedicated to first principles. I mean, she was the featured speaker at Ron Paul's 90th birthday party. I mean, she's so dedicated to small government maximum individual liberty peace principles,

and yet they keep her out of the decision-making process. Keep her out of the decision-making process before we knew how humiliated she would be. When she was in Japan, bemoaning Nagasaki and Hiroshima, she made a speech in which she said, you know, the plutocrat, the elite warmongers have brought us closer to a nuclear exchange than any part of our history. She said that in a little pre-taped video. Nobody knew she was going to say that. But who is she talking about? Who is she talking about?

Well, not just mouths in Macon and other idiots in Europe. She's talking about the people she's in direct clashing with in Washington. So I reverse my former advice to Tulsi, hang in there compared to anybody else. You're the best we got. Maybe when Venezuela falls down flagrantly, maybe Trump will let. listen to you again. If you're not around, he won't be able to listen to you. Larry, the case against, the legal case against Maduro is extremely weak.

The indictment is very sloppy. A lot of us have analyzed that you don't have to be a lawyer with 40 or 50 years experience in order to realize he's accused of things that couldn't possibly be a crime, like possessing a weapon in Caracas that's unlawful to possess in Manhattan. Does anybody in the international community of any significance believe that this has to do with drugs? No, no, absolutely not. And I think Max Blumenthal did a terrific job in his article in the gray zone laying out what was just so ridiculous about that indictment. You know, I've been involved with, you know, we did a case on behalf of the European Union, me and my partners, the other two, to go after the major tobacco.

and liquor companies for money laundering. Now, when you write up a complaint or an indictment based on their activities, you don't just get to say, R.J. Reynolds or Philip Morris, they're engaged in drug trafficking. No, no, no. What you do, you have to say, on November 11th, 2015, Philip Morris received X amount of master cases of cigarettes at such and such port, from such and such party, moved it from there or sold it to this particular individual

who was directly, you know, you get into specifics like that. There's none of that in the indictment, none at all. Correct. Which tells you right away that this was just looking for an excuse to go in and get the oil. And, you know, as I wrote the other day,

this Paul Singer, who had just got a judgment in November of 2025 to go after and recover assets connected to Sitko. Gee, what does Citgo have down on the Gulf of Mexico in the United States? Four refineries that are specifically designed to deal with the kind of heavy crude that comes out of Venezuela. Paul Singer, a multi-billionaire who's donated to Donald Trump. Any chance of corruption there?

No. That's not how Washington... And who financed the viceroy of Venezuela, otherwise known as the Secretary of State of the United States. Yes, yes. Yeah, let me just interject here because we all know this, but the audience needs to be reminded. This had nothing to do with drugs, folks. It had to do with oil. It had to do with regime change.

We're going to run Venezuela now. It had nothing to do with drugs. Larry, Pepe Escobar, our dear friend, says that if Trump tries to install Maria Machado, there'll be a revolution in the streets. Yeah, no, I think he's right. There's enough people there with guns. Look, they think the Senora Rodriguez Delci, who is now the acting president, you know, even though she was not, I think, directly involved with the, the, plans to betray Maduro.

They thought maybe they would be able to buy some time from the United States. Okay, give up Maduro. And there's some strange things on that side, too. If you've seen several of the photos, I've seen him in at least six or seven different outfits in the course of that 24 hours that he was arrested. And he seemed pretty happy doing the thumbs up. So you can't rule out that there was some sort of deal cut. But the Trump administration is completely deletious.

if they think that they're going to run Venezuela. Good luck with that. I don't know how the United States could even posit doing that, Ray. I mean, the government, I know this is hyperbolic and an old Milton Friedman one line, or the government can't deliver the mail. How is it going to run the government, even if it's just the oil aspect of the government of another country? Well, we have lots of experience, Judge.

I mean, just look back to Vietnam. I mean, they murdered that guy, or Ziam, okay? And then we know exactly what to do, except we didn't know what the hell we were getting into. And those who were telling policymakers, like my friend Sam Adams, that there are twice as many Viet Cong under arms as Westmoreland would concede to because he was killing so many each week. The math wouldn't work for Westmoreland.

So we'll just go along, and we don't really have. a distinct plan, but we are in all power and talk about Stephen Miller and we've got the right to do anything we want. It's a lawless nation now. And if there's any, any integrity left in Europe or other countries, they're going to have to say, whoa, this is what we're depending upon to protect us against those terrible Russians in Europe. My God, NATO is finished, especially if the Greenland escapade takes shape. Speaking of Greenland, I'm going to play a clip of President Trump being interviewed by the New York Times. Now, it's a still photo because it wouldn't allow, the White House wouldn't allow video.

You see him at his desk and you see the backs of the four reporters questioning him. Men, you hear their questions. It's very rapid fire, and you hear their answers. And my question to you will be, is he of sound mind? Chris, cut number 10. Do you see any checks on your power on the world stage? Is there anything that could stop you if you wanted to? Yeah, there's one thing.

My own morality, my own mind. It's the only thing that can stop. Not international law. very good. I don't need international law. I'm not looking to hurt people. Yes. How does that play up the block in Congress or up the street at the Supreme Court? Well, Larry. Yeah, actually, I'm more worried how it plays in Moscow. So I'm putting myself in the position of I'm an analyst being asked to go in and brief President Putin. And President Putin is going to ask you a question.

You know, we've been seating along the lines with the assumption that the West recognize some form of international law. Can you now tell me with confidence that Donald Trump is somebody who's going to respect international law? As an analyst looking at, I'm going to have to say, well, Mr. President, we've seen him ignore international law with respect to the abduction of President Maduro. We've seen him ignore international law with respect to the boarding of U.S. flag ships. We've heard from his own mouth that he doesn't respect international law, doesn't accept it. But it's not just him. We've heard it from Secretary of State Rubio. We've heard it from his chief, one of his senior advisors, Stephen Miller.

And we've got the historical record that Donald Trump walked away from the intermediate nuclear forces agreement. and George W. Bush walked away with the anti-ballistic missile agreement. So I cannot point to a single instance in which the United States has acted because it believed it was in accordance with international law. We've seen its invasions of Iraq in 2003 as another example. And it's continued use of military force wherever at once. So no, Mr. President, I cannot assure you that the United States, recognizes respects or even acknowledges international law. Ray, before you respond, I would add to Larry's litany,

the president of the United States doesn't respect American law. The president of the United States lords the execution of a lady driving a car in downtown Minneapolis who's trying to get away from and avoid hitting the guy who executed her. And all the president and the vice president want to do is attack her politics. Yeah, luckily there's no video to show that the president is lying, right? There's video up to kazoo. Six or eight videos that show the president is lying through his teeth, and so is the head of the Department of Homeland Security.

Yeah, this is where the rubber hits the road domestically. Let me just tack on a few things to what Larry said, with which I agree completely. There are some tactical things, you know, like murdering almost, 30 Russian citizens in Ukraine in a known place where they were celebrating New Year's Eve, were still sending 91 drones from Ukraine to hit the president's residence, Nivaldae. We don't know whether he was there or not. That would be interesting, but we don't have to know because they were shot there.

And there's a piece, there's the control unit, okay? They gave it to the U.S. attaché in Moscow about four or five days ago. It's now in Washington. My concept of what Putin has done is call Trump or had Lavrov call Rubio and say, look, you have had three days now to look at that. It's not science, okay? It's very clear. The guidance shows that that was directed, aimed directly at my residence there,

and the other equipment that was there. Now, would you come off this business about Hamlet-like saying, well, we're not sure? I believe them, but then I don't believe them. Do you believe me or not? And I suspect strongly that Putin has been dusted off by Trump and by Rubio and say, look, we need another two weeks to examine us, or, no, I've been persuaded that you are lying, Mr. Trump.

That's why we have an irishnik. That's why we have other attacks directly on American-owned facilities in Iraq, in Iraq, in Ukraine. It's, you know, it's it for that this time, and Putin is not playing Mr. Nice Guy anymore. I don't think he can, given people in Moscow that say, look, you're going to take this sitting down? He's not. He's got a Russianics. He's got other things. And he's trying to tell the person, look, just you come too far now.

now that you lied about the aiming system, the control, I've talked to Ted Pulse still about this. It's very clear. You don't have to have any crypto analysis to figure out where that was aimed. It was aimed right at that control, right at that house. And the fact that CIA and other people are telling the president something else and not letting Tulsi Gabbard tell them the truth, well, the president can learn that one way or another whether he'll, heal or whether he'll say, well, wait a second, maybe I'll deal with Putin again personally. I don't know, but it doesn't look very good for U.S. Russian relations, and the Russians and the U.S. have put some priority on that for the early part of Trump's tenure. Larry Ray raises what was going to be, and we should delve into it. My last subject matter, which is the significance of the use of the Arashnik in the past 48 hours.

Your thoughts? Well, the Russians did an initial demonstration a year ago to warn the West that it does have this capability. Now they've tweaked, you know, they've finger poked the bear again, and the bear has struck back. The launch of that a Russianic missile came with three hours warning to the United States. The United States was warned, okay, we're going to launch this, so just understand we're not launching an intercontinental ballistic missile at the United States. we're launching a missile inside Ukraine. And you can watch where it goes, but you're not going to be able to stop it.

That was the message. It hit just outside LeViv, which is in western Ukraine, up near the boulder of Poland. And it hit a gas storage facility that holds 50% of the entire gas storage in Ukraine. That was eliminated, completely obliterated with this hypersonic missile.

In addition to that, Russia also hit energy sites in Kiev, Zaporizia, Nipro-Petrovsk. And it's now so bad in Kiev that Klitsko, the mayor, is calling upon citizens of Kiev to go out to leave the city. Because the temperatures are so cold, The gas is no longer, there's no longer gas to hit heat boilers, to heat for stoves to be lit, they even provide some form of heat, much less cook food. And with temperatures dropping, they're going to have to cut the water off because otherwise, if the water keeps flowing both into the potable water lines as well as the sewer system,

you're going to get busted pipes. And that becomes a particularly ugly mess when you're in a 10, 15, 20, story apartment building. So it's now, Russia has now entered the phase where it's turning the lights off in Ukraine and forcing the civilians out. Now, this also may be a deliberate part of the Russian strategy in order to minimize civilian casualties. Because if you make the cities unlivable, the citizens have to flee, then the Russians actually have a lot more flexibility in attacking those cities, which they're going to do. Wow. Before we leave, I can't resist. playing for you, my former Fox colleague who now calls himself the Secretary of War

just 14 months ago in November of 24. Watch this. I've been a recovering neocon for six years now. Like the foolishness with which we ricocheted around the world, intervening, think it was in our best interest when really we just overturned the table and created something worse. in almost every single scenario has led to almost I mean the hubris of the Pentagon is that they want to now tell other countries

how to do counterinsurgency based on what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are you kidding me? So you really have learned nothing. Okay, nothing. So you're right, the trust there that our political leaders or our generals would have our best interests of mind

is totally broken. It's totally broken. Could I say something from my experience? in the Bronx. When I was growing up, people like Hetzut tried to be what we used to call a hard guy, okay? And how you did this was you put Vitalis.

Now, people were always... You put a lot of goo on your hair, right? And you combed it real well, and you had a tough chin, and you tried to be a hard guy. You don't have any principles. You just want to look really tough. Now, here's a menace, because if I'm, if I'm his opposite number in Moscow, And I'm advising Putin, what can you expect from excess?

My God, you can expect him to do whatever seems good to him or to Obama. To what can I say Trump the first time? Maybe it's a mental. Whatever Trump wants, Hexsat will do in spades. Okay. So that's a dangerous situation. I don't think that Putin is going to start a nuclear war or fire out. this tactical tactical nudes, but it's going to have to realize that these guys are a little bit

crazy, they're delusional, they might think that they could provoke us into doing that. We'll do everything to prevent ourselves from being provoked into doing that, but we have to be strong and use what we have, Ereschenics and whatever else we have, which is a whole lot. I've got to agree with everything, Ray, just said, and I worked with Pete for six or seven years at Fox, Larry. Yeah. Well, you know, again, the delusional state of the Trump administration

is highlighted by the actions they took against this Russian flag ship, now christened the Marinerra, which means female sailor. The crew, interestingly enough, two Russians, one of whom is the captain,

eight Georgians, and I don't mean Atlanta, Georgia, I mean Tbilisi, Georgia. And 20 Ukrainians. Okay, now think about this. Here we got Russian Ukraine in a war, and yet here's this ship selling around with a Russian captain, 20 Ukrainian crew.

So what happened in the last 12 hours? Well, after Pam Bondi was saying, oh, we're going to bring that crew to the United States and we're going to criminally prosecute them. Guess what? The United States released the two Russians, So now we're going to criminally prosecute 20 Ukrainians. You can't make this stuff up.

Guys, thank you for your time today. I'm glad to end on a sort of a happy note, especially at the government's expense. Have a great weekend. We'll look forward to seeing you both of you on Monday morning. Yes, sir. Thank you. All the best. And on Monday, of course, all of your favorites,

Alster Crook, Ray McGovern. Larry Johnson, one or two others in the afternoon. Professor Miranda from Iran will be with us next week, as will our old buddy Patrick Lancaster from the Dunbos region. So we have much to look forward to. Have a great weekend, everyone. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.