Judging Freedom - Leaker Arrested_ Ukraine Stealing U.S. Aid_ McConnell retiring_

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, no, today is Thursday, sorry, April 13, 2023. It's about 3.35 in the afternoon, a lot happening today. So I have another segment of hot topics for you, much of which has just happened in the past 24 hours and some in the past half hour. In the past 30 minutes, the FBI has arrested a young airman by the name of Jack Teixeira at his home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Mr. Teixeira, there he is, 21 years old, is in the Massachusetts Air National Guard Intelligence Wing. The government says he is the leaker of the documents, the Pentagon documents, which have so embarrassed and humiliated the government over its lying and its military activities in Ukraine. I, of course, have written in my op-ed piece today called the Pentagon Papers Again, which you can get at judsnap.com, that whoever released these documents is an American hero because the public needs to know when the government is lying, particularly when the government is lying about killing and when

the government is lying about war. What are the lies? We all know them. The government itself knows that Ukraine can't win this war. The government itself knows that Ukraine's air defenses will be degraded down to zero by the end of next month. The government itself knows that Ukraine's air defenses will be degraded down to zero by the end of next month. The government itself knows the Russians have a kill ratio advantage of seven to one. The Russians kill seven Ukrainian soldiers for every one soldier, every one Russian soldier that the Ukrainians kill. The government knows all this. This is from the documents that were released, however they were released. And the government has known this for some time. And the government has been lying about it through the mouths of its spokespersons.

The Secretary of Defense of the United States of America lied to Congress. he must have known the information that was in these documents at the time he made statements 180 degrees from the contents of the documents, misleading the Senate, misleading the Congress, misleading the American public. You have the right to know when the government is lying to you. And people in the government should not risk their lives and liberty in order to tell you. I don't know if this young kid released this. It's hard to believe that a 21-year-old enlisted person in the Air National Guard, it's the lowest level of the military there is, it's not even full-time work, could possibly have had a level of security clearance to this height.

I think it is more likely than not the government wanted this information out there because they want a soft landing for the crash landing that is coming. The crash landing is the public awareness that the American involvement in Ukraine is a political facade done to cause Joe Biden to be able to run for re-election as a wartime president. It's been a disaster. It's been a humanitarian disaster. The war would have been over and Putin would have stopped with the eastern provinces had we not been supplying Ukraine with the assistance we've been supplying it. And we're supplying manpower never authorized by the Congress. Okay, you know all of that. Seymour Hersh, Cy Hersh, the same intrepid reporter who exposed Watergate, the same

intrepid reporter who exposed the American destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline by CIA and Navy divers is out with a piece late last night reporting that the CIA knows that Ukrainian officials are skimming. million in cash skimmed from the money the U.S. government has deposited in Ukrainian banks and from the pallets full of $100 bills that the U.S. has flown across the Atlantic in Air Force cargo transports and delivered into the tender mercies of the Ukrainian government generals. When the head of the CIA, William Burns, I don't have proof of what he does, but his reputation is for being intellectually honest, went to President Zelensky, he said, what's this list? President said, what's this list? Burns said, these are the 35 generals that have skimmed close to 400 million. Mr. President, we didn't put your name on the list, but you'd be the king of the grifters, of the grafters here. What did Zelensky do? He didn't

admit, he didn't deny. He fired 10 generals on the list. Why were they fired? Because they had aroused resentment. What was the resentment they aroused? They skimmed more than the other generals did. They got away with more than the others did. What are the troops, the Ukrainian troops, angry about? That the generals are getting all the American cash and they're not getting any. I'm not talking about money used to buy things for the troops. I'm talking about stolen cash put into

the pockets of Ukraine's senior military and political leadership. You won't hear the CIA admitting this other than the sources in the CIA that admit it to Cy Hersh, but he admitted it this morning. He wrote about it yesterday. Here's what he also wrote about. Where is Ukraine buying oil from? The U.S. can't ship oil overseas, and we don't have enough storehouses of oil, absolutely vital for their tanks and their artillery, oil stored in Europe. They're buying it from Russia, from Russia. Russian oil companies are permitted to sell oil to the Ukrainians as long as the Ukrainians use, you guessed it, American dollars to buy the oil.

It's a way for Moscow to get its hands on some of tens of millions of American dollars. They're not selling oil at $100 a barrel. We don't know what the number is, but of course, it's a vastly inflated number. Technically, it's against the law in Russia, but Russian authorities look the other way because President Putin knows the advantage of American dollars in the Kremlin. President Putin also knows the advantage of American dollars to the Russian economy. I remember Khrushchev once said to the West, he was wrong, thank God, we will sell you the rope with which you will hang yourselves. Okay, the Russians are selling the Ukrainians the oil with which they will bury themselves.

All of this exposed by Cy Hersh late last night. None of it acknowledged by the government. What's the government doing? They're still looking for the sailboat that they say had four Swedish tourists on it who dropped a bomb into the Baltic Sea, which destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline. Believe that there's a bridge in Brooklyn that maybe the CIA wants to sell you. Representative Andy Biggs, good friend of the show, has introduced legislation to require the District Attorney of New York to claw back money that the feds have given to the DA. Feds have given money for local prosecution. Where's that in the Constitution? Well, nowhere. The government doesn't even look for authority in the Constitution any longer.

Members of Congress, except for a few intrepid souls like Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Thomas Massey and Congressman Andy Biggs and their colleagues occasionally will make arguments. Where is this in the Constitution? When they make those arguments, nobody's on the floor of the House. It goes in one ear and out the other, or they can't even make the arguments on the floor of the House or the Senate. They have to put it in the congressional record. The type of aid that the feds have given to Alvin Bragg, the DA of Manhattan, and to other local DAs does not really pay for police or pay for prosecutors. It pays for things like victim services, social workers to counsel victims that have been harmed, money to repay victims back when the criminal has no assets. So this bill that Congressman Biggs has offered, even if it became law, and of course it's dead on arrival,

but even if it became law, no money is actually going to be clawed back. I'm a little worried about efforts by the Republicans to interfere with this prosecution. Could you imagine Democrats interfering with prosecutions when the Republican is the prosecutor, because the defendant is a popular Democrat? Politics should stay out of this. I happen to think Alvin Bragg has enough evidence to bring this prosecution. If I'm wrong, a trial judge will rule that way or a jury will rule that way. If you like Trump, you hope I'm wrong. If you don't like Trump, you hope that I'm right.

But these are decisions that should be made by the judicial process and not by the political one. It's only so far Congress can go. Congress can only go so far before its behavior is considered by federal courts to be an interference of a local prosecution. What's wrong with that? Well, Congress has written statutes that prohibit the federal government from interfering with local prosecutions. The states are sovereign entities. I know they don't act like it, but with respect to prosecutions and their judicial system, they are sovereign entities, and the federal government should essentially say hands off. But I like Congressman Biggs, and I commend what he did. And my guess is, knowing him, I haven't done the research,

he voted against giving this money in the first place because he believes, as I do and most of you do, that Congress can do only what the Constitution authorizes it to do. Does the Constitution authorize the Congress to fund an FBI? Absolutely not. Does the Constitution authorize the Congress to enact 5,500 criminal laws? Absolutely not. Does the Constitution authorize the Congress to enact 5,500 criminal laws? Absolutely not. The Constitution only authorizes two criminal laws and no federal police department and no justice department. But we're stuck with 5,500 criminal laws so complicated that no one person is conversant with all of them. And we're stuck with an FBI that sticks its nose everywhere. Stuck with it until we get a president and a Congress courageous enough to undo it. Republicans in the Senate are in a little bit of a turmoil. Mitch McConnell is home and recuperating from an injury to his head when he fell and cracked some ribs in a Washington, D.C. hotel about a month ago.

And it doesn't look like he's going to return. He will probably resign as Republican leader and then he'll resign from the Senate. If he resigns as Republican leader, there'll be a dog fight amongst leading Republicans. John Barrasso of Wyoming, escaping the name of me, John Cornyn from Texas, as to who will succeed Senator McConnell. He's been a Republican leader for 20 years. He's been the longest Republican leader in the history of the Senate. But more than that will be who will replace him in the Senate. Well, under federal law and under Kentucky law, that decision will be made by the governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear. Governor Beshear is a Democrat. So whoever he chooses to replace Senator McConnell will be a Democrat who will vote to organize with the Democrats. So

that's one fewer Democrat in the Senate, excuse me, one fewer Republican in the Senate and one more Democrat. Expect that to happen and expect a bloodbath for who is going to succeed Senator McConnell. Why a bloodbath? Because the Republicans rarely change their leader. And whoever this is gets all the power and all the perks, including bodyguards and a limousine and an enormous suite of offices in the Capitol, and if Republicans take the Senate, absolute ironclad control over who runs the agenda in the Senate. The majority leader in the Senate controls the agenda. Chuck Schumer, liberal Democrat from New York, controls the agenda. He and he alone decides what the Senate votes on, not the Democratic caucus. And if the Republicans control the majority, not the Republican caucus,

the majority leader and the majority leader alone. So the battle that you will soon see for the replacement to Senator McConnell is really the battle for the majority leader when the Republicans take the Senate back. And they will at some point. It goes back and forth, back and forth. Right now the Democrats have it by one vote. When Senator McConnell resigns from the Senate, the Democrats will have it by two votes. Well, actually four. It will be 52 to 48. Right now it's 51 to 49. And that, of course, will reduce the authority of Senator Manchin, the Democrat who usually votes with Republicans, and Senator Sinema, the Democrat who threatens to vote with Republicans when she's looking for a favor from the Democrats. I don't know how this ends. I don't know how sick Senator McConnell is,

but I do know that the scheming and the vote counting and the horse trading behind the scenes amongst the Republicans has already begun. I don't know it personally, but I know it because reporters on Capitol Hill, some of whom are my friends and former colleagues, have been reporting it. There you have it for today. The FBI has arrested someone, they say, who acted alone, couldn't possibly have done so, and getting the secrets out. Cy Hirsch says the CIA knows that Ukrainian military and political leadership has stolen $400 million from the American taxpayer, from cash. And the government, the American government's doing nothing about it.

Republicans are concerned about money in the DA's office in New York. They don't like the fact that he's prosecuting Trump and they want to take some of his money away from him. You can form your own judgment on that. And the balance of power in the Senate is about to shift yet again by one vote towards the Democrats. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.