Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson: Was MI-6 or CIA Behind Moscow Terror?

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Larry Johnson: Was MI-6 or CIA Behind Moscow Terror?See 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 Monday, March 25th, 2024. Larry Johnson joins us now. Larry, we'll start with breaking news, which is a vote by the United Nations Security Council unanimously, excuse me, with the United States abstaining, calling for an immediate ceasefire during Ramadan. Ramadan started a few weeks ago, a full immediate ceasefire and exchange of prisoners. This happening while Israeli political leaders are meeting with the State Department in Washington and Israeli military leaders are meeting with the Defense Department in Washington. Your thoughts?

Well, one, the Biden administration, I think, is realizing it's in some significant trouble domestically with the Arab American, Muslim American community. And I think that that's the primary factor driving this forward. So they realized that they couldn't continue. I don't think it's because of the terrible humanitarian situation. I mean, it's been that way for a while, and they've been happy to ignore it. But I also think there's been an element of pushback against the Israelis. The arrogance being demonstrated by the likes of Netanyahu and Ben-Gavir and Smotrich and others

is just, you know, they can be insufferable. And I think the Biden administration's finally fed up with that too. The fact of the matter is that the United States is in a unique position among all countries in the world to bring a halt to this because they can tell Israel right off the bat, there's not going to be any more ammunition and we're cutting off the funds. If you're going to persist in killing Palestinians, it's got to stop. So we'll see what happens going forward. So the United States vetoed three prior resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Then the United States offered its own resolution, which was so watered down and there were so many ifs and contingencies in it that the Russians and the Chinese vetoed it. Now the United States, instead of supporting the veto, at least abstained, which allowed it to go through.

I wasn't going to go to where we're going, but you just raised a great question about what do we do now. Congressman Ro Khanna, a liberal progressive, but totally fed up with the administration's facilitating war crimes in Gaza. This is cut number three, Chris. It's long. It's 90 seconds. Gr grilling Secretary Austin about if Netanyahu defies the United States and invades Rafah. What are you going to do if he uses military equipment to commit war crimes? That itself is a crime on the part of the United States. What are you going to do? It's a great Q&A. It doesn't always give you the questions you want, but at least the answers are being articulated. Watch this.

Secretary Austin, last week you spoke to Defense Minister Gallant, and you said, clearly, there needs to be a plan to ensure the safety and support of those sheltering in Rafah before any military operations proceed. National Security Advisor Sullivan has said he has not seen any plan yet. John Kirby said it would be a disaster to invade Rafah. If Netanyahu defies the United States and invades Rafah, will you commit today that you will halt any future military sales to Israel? Obviously, sir, that's a presidential decision. But, you know, we expect that, and by the way, I spoke to Minister Gallant last night, and I expect that when we provide munitions to allies and partners, that they'll use them in a responsible way.

But would you make a commitment that they defy what we're saying and they violate international law? By the way, which is opposed to National Security Memorandum 18 and National Security Memorandum 20, that if they don't do what we are saying, that we would halt those arm sales or transfers? Again, the decision to halt the provision of security assistance would not be mine. It would be What would you recommend? Well, I certainly, again, I really do expect that they utilize the weapons that we provide them in a responsible way.

And then if they don't- I just want to, for time purposes, it seems to me if they're defying what you're telling him, what Kirby's telling him, what Sullivan's telling him, that wouldn't be responsible. Well, notice he doesn't say, I would expect them to use them in a lawful way, because he can't expect them to use it in a lawful way Because he can't expect them to use it in a lawful way Because they haven't, they don't, and they won't And the administration doesn't give a damn that they're breaking the law By knowingly facilitating all of this slaughter Right, right

It looks like this has come to a head And again, I think the primary factor driving this forward is the domestic political situation. Biden is in trouble. And no matter how much they try to demonize Trump, it's his own policies with respect to the border, with respect to Israel, with respect to Ukraine, that are blowing up on it. And so the White House, I think, you know, they've been so firm up to this point. And it's going to be interesting. I think one thing we can be sure of, the Republicans are going to be mercilessly attacking Biden now for abandoning Israel. Expect to see that as one of the main lines of attack over the next, you know, 24 hours and going forward. What does the Security Council vote mean, if anything, other than maybe some international political pressure on Netanyahu?

Does it mean anything more than that? It doesn't have any, you know, legal force in terms of, in terms of that if Israel doesn't do it, they're going to be hauled before the world court or something. But I think it is going to provide enough cover for some countries that up to this point, they've been condemning Israel, but they've not really been willing to take action. So, for example, this may finally compel Turkey to say, okay, look, if you don't comply with this, we're going to cut off the oil. And once Israel's, once the oil's cut off, Israel's got some real problems. Already down in their port in Eliyat at the southern tip, going towards the Red Sea, they've

had to lay off at least 50% of the staff. So the combination of the blockade, the economic blockade that the Houthis have imposed in terms of ship traffic going up to Israel, and now this, the demand, a united demand, and it

sends a message with the United States not willing to have Israel's back. That's how Israel's going to look at it. And they don't have an alternative. They don't have anywhere else to run. And Israel has actually sort of gone out of its way to anger and infuriate the Chinese and the Russians. Not a good strategy. Let's turn to the other breaking news. You, my dear friend, have taken the lead on chastising, criticizing, even mocking the U.S. intelligence community for claiming within 55 minutes of the breaking news, the killers were probably still outside the concert at that point.

But yet the United States concluded it was not Ukraine. Oh, yeah, it's not Ukraine. We knew that. Oh, boy. Who in the intelligence community, veteran and active duty, would take that seriously? Yeah, well, no one should take that seriously. You're right. The mocking I did was saying, well, boy, you know, the people,

the people that figured that out for the Biden administration, let's put them on that Nord Stream pipeline. They'll have that thing solved in a heartbeat. And then we'll go on to the Kennedy assassination. You know, all the mysteries that haven't been solved because these guys are magical problem solvers. You know, what is so, what's so dangerous about what the Biden administration did is by making that kind of statement, whether it was based on any information or not, they make it clear to the Russians and to the rest of the world that the United States knew something, which means the United States was likely involved. And that is a recipe for escalation, because I think the escalation that's going to come is up until last

Friday when that attack occurred, the Russians under Putin's direction had been exercising a lot of restraint, because this wasn't the first terrorist attack in Moscow. There had been some drone strikes in Moscow. There had been the daughter of Mr. Dugan, Professor Dugan, she was murdered. There was a journalist murdered. They've had shelling with U.S. weapons taking place along the border, what used to be the border between Ukraine and Russia. And yet up to this point, Russia has not escalated. Now they're going to escalate. And the escalation is they're going to hit some government offices in Kiev previously that were considered off limits. They're going to kill members of the government. They're going to

target and kill NATO personnel and country without any regard for the consequences. So this is going to ratchet up. They're already significantly taking out infrastructure related to power grids. So the Russian, you know, and Americans go, well, how could they do that? I just, you know, people think back to what the feeling was in the United States on the morning after 9-11. And that was one of the few times that you saw that the differences between Republicans and Democrats evaporated, and that there was a unity in America about going forward and killing those who did this to us. Well, hello, that's now alive and awake in Moscow. We are taking a poll, for those of you watching, it's at the top of the comments section. And the poll asks if you think

Ukraine was responsible for the attack on the Krokus concert hall. Could you imagine if there was a comparable attack on Madison Square Garden during a Billy Joel concert? And then it turns out that the FSB, the Russian security agency, knew about it and looked the other way. 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 more at wgu.edu. That the guys who did it were running for the Russian border. You know? At that point, it wouldn't matter to us whether Russia was involved or not.

That would be proof enough that the Russians were behind it. Wow. Wow. What do you think intelligence thinks? Is it more likely than not that CIA, MI6, perhaps Mossad, you tell me, knew about this and looked the other way or instigated it and supported it in some way? What do you think, Larry? I think there was some planning and support to it.

Because right now what we're seeing, and it's coming, in my view, it's coming from intelligence sources, both CIA and MI6. They're planting stories and articles out there about ISIS-K people, information about people related to ISIS. That's sort of starting to get out there into social media because they're trying to shift the narrative that, oh, this was ISIS-K. And yet people forget ISIS would not exist if the United States had not invaded Iraq back in 2003. And if the United States had not picked up and tortured Iraqis, Muslims, that had nothing to do with terrorism up to that point, but after being brutalized by American interrogators,

decided to take matters into their own hands and seek revenge. And candidly, if the power did that to me or did it to you, we would react the same way. But now ISIS is becoming a convenient propaganda tool. And let's remember one thing. We've had a presence in Syria now for 10 years. And that presence is ostensibly there to fight ISIS, except we're not really doing anything to fight ISIS.

The Russians are fighting ISIS along with the Syrian government. Our plan has been to overthrow Syria. What is ISIS-K? Is that some made-up thing or does it actually exist? It's a group out of Afghanistan. It's sort of the remnants of people that have now gone over to this extreme fundamentalism. You know, they're more fundamental than the Taliban. Okay. Think about that. But, you know, I think it's really more of an intelligence creation right now because they've not been carrying out global attacks. And this convenient explanation that, oh, these guys are ISIS-K. Look, normally the people that have run under the ISIS circle are very devout followers.

So Ramadan means something to them. So if these were devout Muslims, they would not be carrying out a terrorist attack during Ramadan, number one. Number two, they would have sacrificed their lives if this was truly, they were fighting a jihad in terms of serving the

goals of Allah. They didn't do that, man. They ran for the border. They skedaddled. They tried to get away. And then they claim, yeah, this whole plot came together because the the reading the telegram channel which is you know sort of like twitter and they got this anonymous uh message suddenly hey you want to go carry out a a murderous attack on a bunch of

civilians we'll pay you you know just it's it's ridiculous. Let's reverse engineer this. What would Ukraine have to gain from a murderous attack on innocent civilians, mainly young people in a Moscow suburb? Oh, they're hoping it would, one, undermine confidence in Vladimir Putin, create a rift between Putin and the security services, some on the belief that they think that Putin may have been too soft on terrorism in the past and that the security services want to be much harder, as a way to hope that it will provoke Russia into overreacting and then, you know, give Ukraine some hope of getting more Western military assistance in terms of troops on the ground. You know, Russia is not going to take that bait, but, you know, Russia is just now going to go to

work on these guys in a way that they haven't up to this point. So the glove, you know, let's put it this way, the velvet gloves are coming off. I want you to give some thought while we run this clip. The clip is President Putin's first statement, public statement on the attack on the concert hall. But I want you to give some thought to whether, while you're listening, President Putin, whether you can draw a straight line between Victoria Nuland's boast on her way out of office, we have a nasty surprise coming for President Putin and what happened on Friday, but here's what President Putin had to say. No way. The main thing is to not let those behind this bloodbath commit new crimes. what happened on Friday, but here's what President Putin had to say. The main thing is to not let those behind this bloodbath commit new crimes.

Regarding the investigation of this crime and results of operational search actions, I can now say the following. All four of the actual perpetrators of the act of terror, all those who shot and killed people, were and detained they tried to hide and were moving in the direction of ukraine there according to the preliminary information they had a crossing of the border prepared from the ukrainian side overall 11 people were detained all the executors planners and those who ordered this crime will be rightfully and inevitably punished, whoever they are and whoever directed them. Let me repeat, we will identify and punish everyone who stood behind the terrorists who prepared this attack against Russia, against our people. Does that include Victoria Nuland? Yes.

No, no, I mean, yeah, it could potentially do that. And that, look, that illustrates how juvenile and competent this Biden administration is. Because I learned, you know, years ago when I first went into government, you want to be careful about what you say, particularly when you're someone of the stature of Victoria Newland, because you recognize the comments can come back to haunt you. So don't say anything you don't really mean. And when you're saying, yeah, we got some nasty surprises for you. Well, then when something like this happens, the Russians, whether they've got evidence

of it or not, are going to naturally assume that the United States was directly involved. And then, as we saw on March 7th, when the United States kind of said, oh, yeah, there's going to be a terrorist attack within the next 48 hours. And yet it appears, based upon, you know, I keep looking for confirmation that the United States actually provided intelligence information to the Russians, but they didn't. And you've seen several senior officials around Putin come out and say, no, no, we didn't. The United States didn't say anything to us about this. And then with the picture that emerges yesterday of one of the attackers from Friday night. Well, guess what? He's photographed in that center, in the Kroka Center, on March 7th. And so if you're the Russians and you're just taking these different pieces and putting it together, you've got to

assume the United States is involved. And Putin, he didn't say, only if you're Ukrainian, you're going to pay the price. No, no. Anyone. And he damn well means it. I asked this to Ray earlier today. Is there a mentality in the operations side of intel, MI6, CIA, perhaps Mossad, the side that Jack Devine worked in and ran? Is there a mentality in that side that could plan, facilitate, or even be indifferent to the mass killing of innocents? There are elements. And I think it's important to really not demonize the entire operations side of the house because you look at people like Phil Giraldi as an example.

I know several others like him who were intelligence officers who took their mission of trying to recruit foreigners to come spy for the United States very seriously, but they really shied away from getting embroiled in these covert activities. You know, a couple of friends who had long distinguished careers, they always steered away from it. In fact, one of my buddies, he was asked to head up the Iran task force back when the Bush administration was getting ready to try to launch an attack inside Iran, and he walked away. But there are those who would get involved with that and who would do it.

And so, or I think what is the most likely scenario here is a case officer that was working closely with the SBU in Ukraine, their intelligence outfit. He became aware of the plan. They may have even talked to him about it. He knew about it and didn't say, maybe said some things within his circle or up the chain of command to say, hey, I think that the Ukrainians are going to do it, but that we didn't do anything to stop it. Where do you think this goes from here? We believe, it may have been you who told me in an early morning text, that President Putin and the Russians may have leveled and destroyed the main headquarters of Ukraine intelligence services in Kyiv. I mean, that would be like destroying Langley, if you're analogizing.

Yeah, yeah. Well, see, they have targeted some of the SBU facilities, you know, four or five months ago. But I think what we're going to see now is a significant uptick in those kinds of attacks. They already were hitting NATO, let's call them NATO warehouses that are out on the border with Poland in Western Ukraine. That has happened in the last couple of days. They are going after any base, any facility where there are foreign personnel. So they're not taking care to try to only limit their casualties to Ukrainians.

They're going full bore now. And I would not be surprised to see them take some action against Elon Musk's Starlink system because that computer network is being used to help collect and send information that's being used to target Russian civilians. I could see the Russians taking that out. Again, they've up to this point wanted to avoid taking this, let's say, into space and into the satellite realm. But I think they're going to say, okay, we're going to put a halt to all of this Western intelligence collection that we've allowed to go on up to this point.

So that's one of the other things I think we're going to see. The bottom line, this war is going to expand. It's not contracting. Here's the Polish defense minister two days ago complaining that a Russian missile targeting Western Ukraine somehow entered Polish airspace. Poland said the missile entered its territory as it was firing at targets in western Ukraine. The city of Lviv, close to the Polish border, came under heavy attack. At 4.43 a.m. there was a violation of Poland's airspace by one of the Russian missiles. The object flew into Poland's airspace near the town of Osserdow in Lublin province

and stayed on our territory for 39 seconds. It flew about 1,000 to 2,000 meters into our territory. At all times the object was monitored by Poland's radio tracking systems. Are they looking for an excuse, Larry? I just saw one of the people watching and put it in the comments. He goes, yeah, Poland, what are you going to do about it? That was my thought exactly. Hey, you're going out and saying, we're impotent.

Russia can fly its missiles into our country and there's nothing we can do about it but cry, whine, and complain. So, you know, Poland's got, you know, they don't, none of the NATO countries have the ability to launch and sustain military operations. They may be able to make an immediate impact for a week, two weeks. Then they run out of gas. They're sort of the equivalent of one of these electric vehicles that, yeah, it's fast, it drives great, but, boy, if you can't find a charging station, it runs out of power and it's just a piece of junk sitting in the highway. But are the Poles looking for a tripwire so that they can get involved, so that NATO's involved, so that everybody that wants World War III can have it?

Yeah, they may be, but they've already put their troops in. They're already Poles. I think Poles represent the second largest contingent, if not the largest contingent of mercenaries, so-called mercenaries, fighting in Ukraine, which means they're also taking some of the largest number of casualties. But you've got that, but then on the other hand, you've got Ukrainian vehicles getting lined up. They're not being allowed into Poland because the Polish people, the Polish farmers, they said, this has got to stop.

So you've got really a schizophrenic policy right now in Poland. On the one hand, they want to be really embracing Ukraine. But then on the other hand, they want to fight Ukraine on an economic basis. So they're highlighting this as part of, I think, their overall effort to continue to blame Russia. But what are they going to do about it? Nothing. We've been running this poll about whether folks think Ukraine was involved. So far, 2,200 of you have voted. 94% say yes on Ukraine's likely involvement, and 6% say no. As we speak, last series of questions, Larry, the political leadership and military leadership, I alluded to this earlier, of Israel are here.

You don't expect any change in American military assistance to Israel, do you? No, actually, I think there will be a significant, there's a threat there now that the Biden administration is making it clear. They say, look, we're in a difficult situation here politically as well. The era in which AIPAC could buy off members of Congress and that the American people would go along with it, that's over. So the social media platforms are filled with people under the age, you know, between the ages of 20 and 40 that are decidedly anti-Israel now, not pro-Israel.

And so that's started to resonate and have an effect. So I think the Biden administration brought them here in order to convey to them exactly how serious the situation is, and they can't continue to be business as usual going forward. Well, back to that poll, one of our viewers claims that Jack Devine is emailing people trying to get them to vote no. I think that was said with the tongue in cheek. I'm sure Jack believes that, but he probably has other things on his mind. Larry, thank you very much for all of this insight. You've had an enormous audience this morning with incredible instantaneous response for which everybody,

not least of all I, are profoundly grateful. The roundtable, because Friday's Good Friday, the roundtable on Thursday afternoon this week for our wrap-up on events in Moscow, in Ukraine, and in Gaza. Thank you, Larry. All the best. Thank you, Judge. Coming up at two o'clock this afternoon, Kevin McDermott on a war economy. What does that mean for Europe? What does it mean for us? Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.