Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh: Assange's Last Chance for Freedom

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Matt Hoh: Assange's Last Chance for FreedomSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resolve to earn your degree in the 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 more at wgu.edu. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, May 24, 2024. Matt Ho joins us now. Matt, a pleasure. My dear friend, thank you for joining us. I know you're just back from London. You were present at the excitement outside the London courthouse

when the court, to me, unexpectedly ruled in Julian Assange's favor, giving him another appeal and indicating the court's displeasure with the representations that the Americans made to it. And I want to spend some time in that. But before we go there, first to the breaking news. The International Court of Justice just a few hours ago came out with a ruling by a vote of 13 to 2, two rulings, one reaffirming its preliminary ruling in January, and two, making that preliminary ruling now permanent and ordering the Israeli government to cease its invasion of Rafah. Before I ask for your comments and fairness to you and everybody watching, we're going to play a clip of the chief judge of the court. We added it down because a lot of it

has a lot of extraneous material in there, but here's the core, the guts of what the chief judge of the International Criminal Court announced today after a six-month investigation. I shall now read out the operative part of the order. For these reasons, the court, by 13 votes to 2, reaffirms the provisional measures indicated in its orders of 26 January 2024 and March 28 2024, which should be immediately and effectively implemented. Two indicates the following provisional measures. The State of Israel shall, in conformity with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and in view of the worsening conditions

of life faced by civilians in the Rafah, A by 13 votes to 2, immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah governorate which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that would bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. That's about as sound and solid as can be. So first, your opinion of this, and second, your opinion of the effect of this on Israel's standing in the world. Thanks for having me back on, Judge. And I'm glad you brought up a bit about the Assange ruling from earlier this week, because that coupled with this gives us all some degree of rationality and some sanity to hang on to. Because what we're up against, this world where it's not genocide, it's self-defense, it's not journalism, it's the Espionage Act. What we're being presented with by our establishment and by our leaders just makes no

sense to any of us. So this ruling today from the ICJ confirms what we know, confirms what we see, what we see with our eyes, what we read every day on our screens. And so it's incredibly important. I think like everybody else, wishes had occurred seven months ago. And in terms of I think everyone's also in agreement, though, that in terms of what this means in terms of practical effects immediately doesn't mean anything. The Israelis, of course, are going to ignore it. And the United States is going to scream and jump about. I think Lindsey Graham already tweeted out, you know, the hell with the ICJ. You know, I mean, so what the effects will be long term, though, are that you're going to have a continuing isolation of Israel and of the United States. And this will exasperate and hasten the decline of the American empire, because as nations around the world watch this unfold, watch these events continue to unfold and experience their own relationships with the United States being dependent upon the mood and temperament and whim of the Americans, they are going to continue to try and get out of the American orbit, get out from underneath the American hegemony and find alternatives, you know, such as BRICS. And so today's ruling by the ICJ, something that will not just be ignored by Israel,

but will be ignored by the United States and most likely attempt to be sabotaged or denied by the Americans. Because after this, after this ruling by the ICJ, in order for it to be enforced, has to go to the UN Security Council. And so, of course, we all know what's going to happen there. They're going to destroy it, is going to continue to hasten the amount of nations who are trying to escape

from underneath the American empire and to create alternatives to it. That is a very, very interesting, fascinating observation that I had not thought of, the reduction of American hegemony. Back to the court. Is there any reason to believe that the court was not fair, that the court did not have solid evidence in front of it, that the court is anti-Semitic, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has said, that the court was political? Is there any reason to believe that this was anything other than a principled decision based on irrefutable evidence and international law? There's no reason to believe that at all, Judge. In fact, it's the opposite. So the court ruled 13 to 2 on these decisions today. The two

votes against being from that Ugandan judge who was the only one who voted in favor of Israel in the previous decisions in January and March, as well as the judge that Israel is allowed to have on the court. Is there an American judge on the court? There's an American judge on the court. But what's interesting, Judge, about how these judges are selected is that they go through the UN Security Council and through the UN General Assembly. So it's not as if these judges are selected by the countries and then the countries get a turn to place them on the court, right? What it is, is that these judges are nominated and then they go for votes in front of both the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly to be on the International Court of Justice. So every one of these judges

who voted in favor of these decisions, those 13 judges, were all voted upon by the Security Council and the entire General Assembly, which means the United States and its allies, including Israel, had opportunities to vote on these men and women. And obviously they're on the court. So they received, you know, majority majority votes in probably in the sense that they are probably. Do you know if the court is collaborative? That is, if they discuss all this or they just vote individually, the U.S. Supreme Court is collaborative. They sit around a table, they haggle. OK, it's six to three, seven to two, whatever. But the original U.S. Supreme Court wasn't that way.

They each gave a decision and then some clerk counted noses. Do you know what this court does? I don't know, Judge. I'm not sure how that works, you know, in terms of how they come down. Sounds to me as though it's a collaborative. I've never heard in the modern era of a court doing the each judge as individual and a clerk counts, counts the noses. And to your point, though, about what's, what's been established is that the facts that we have seen has been confirmed by the court, not that we needed that confirmation to

continue to allow us to understand what's going on there, not to we need the court to say that what Israel is doing is a war crime with Americans the Americans and other nations are doing are war crimes as well, because Israel could not do it without their support. But also too, when you listen to the chief judge there, when he lays out the order, at the end, he speaks using the words of the Genocide Act in terms. So again, we're being brought back to this decision that will come from this court about whether or not formally, legally, out of the highest court in the planet, basically, Israel is conducting a genocide.

And so everything we're seeing is continuing to confirm that legally Israel is doing this and should be held accountable, as well as all the nations, including the United States, that are allowing this to happen, not just allowing it to happen, making sure it is happening. And of course, that's a legal decision or legal defining of what's going on there. And of course, as we all know, what's taking place anyway, it's a genocide, ethnic cleansing, it's an organized murder for collective punishment, et cetera. Now, I know it's another court, the International Criminal Court, the ICC. But what happens if the three-judge panel of that court authorizes the filing of the indictments against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Galant and the three Hamas people and issues arrest warrants for them? Does Israel become even more isolated? Well, not just Israel,

Judge. It's us as Americans. We fall into a deeper crisis here because with this order from the ICJ today, Israel is in clear violation of international law. The first order from the court back in January was essentially don't commit genocide. The second order was you have to allow humanitarian aid in. And now this order is very clear, stop your military operations. Israel is not going to do that. They are clearly in violation of international law. They are carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity, against a protected population. Now, what you have with the ICC now is a designation or soon to be designation of Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant as war criminals, as individuals. And so this crisis we have in the United States

is vast and it is expanding in the sense that we are, of course, as mentioned before, carrying out this genocide hand in glove with Israel. We're doing everything other than pulling the triggers. And we are now at the point where we're about to see the United States Congress welcome to a joint session Benjamin Netanyahu, who may be under an arrest warrant from the ICC. So as the United States of America, as with all the other issues we have, coupled with this or with anything else you want to bring in, who are we as a people? Who are we as a nation? And where are we going forward? And when you start to extrapolate on that, of course, none of us likes the answer we get.

Before we get to your experiences in London with Julian Assange, one of our colleagues, Larry Johnson, has a short but very powerful piece out this morning on his website, which basically says, no matter what the U.S. does to arm Ukraine, there is no no emphasis, no path to victory. Isn't that a view held by all rational observers who are not neocons in the Biden administration? And irrational is the key phrase there, Judge. I had that same thought today. I hadn't read Dyer's piece yet, but I've certainly read the Reuters reporting from today about how Russia continues to offer ceasefire proposals. At the same time, you're reading articles about how Tony Blinken is leading the charge for an escalation of the war in Ukraine in Washington, D.C., arguing that we should be giving weapons that the Ukrainians can then utilize to strike deep into Russia.

How that brings about an end to the war is, I don't know. It's not rational. It makes no sense. It's not going to cause the Russians to quit. It's not going to force them to go to a negotiating table. They already want to go to a negotiating table, and it's not going to do anything to strengthen Ukraine's hand. All it's going to do is allow the Russians to escalate the war even further. When I was in London, I attended the Assange hearing, but I also attended a conference at the House of Lords and myself and several others spoke on that. Don't tell me you were forced to listen to Lord David Cameron. No, no, but there were a couple there, Judge, that were just as bad, if not worse. And, you know,

just to go ahead. Just for the record, Cameron is the former prime minister and now the British defense minister. Go ahead, please. Right. So I spoke at this panel was in front of about 100, 120 business leaders and members of parliament. And the panel was united in that opinion that you just offered, Judge, that this war is unwinnable. And including we had a gentleman on the panel who had been the head of the Royal Navy and then had gone on to become the head of the British Intelligence Services. And he says the war is unwinnable. He says the war is unwinnable. He starts off his discussion by saying, look, I've been a part of this. I was involved in all this. And

NATO is the problem here. And what he's greeted with is that irrationality, right? So it's not me who's saying this. It's not the other Americans who are on the panel who showed up in London. These people don't know who we are, but this is one of them. He's a member of the House of Lords, actually. And they refuse to listen to his words. Why would he be making this up? Why would he be saying something so unpopular, so against the narrative of the nation that he served for so long if he didn't believe it? And this is the problem he's running up against is this irrationality, right? This exuberance for war, the romanticism, or maybe it's the greed for it, the lust for it, the idea that somehow this is going to bring about

profit and power. You know what I mean? But anyway, however you come to it, it's an idiocy that is incredibly dangerous. And it's now at the point where you can read an article like I did today talking about how Russia has is asking for a ceasefire and then read another article talking about how the American secretary of state is arguing for escalating the war by by attacking targets deeper into Russia, using American weapons to kill Russian soldiers and presumably also Russian civilians and the madness of it. Right. And so this idea of rationality is completely, completely upended. And so we are, we are at this point now, judge, where, what is the point of all this? Where do they think this is going to go? And I haven't read Larry's piece, but, but I imagine that's what he's getting at is that where does this head to? Where can it head to? It can't. These men and women act and think as if everything is like it's we're in Alice in Wonder, do you say, okay, enough? We've tried to negotiate for these many years now, and it's come to nothing. And now these NATO nations are continuing to escalate the war. They keep poking us. They keep poking us. We keep losing our young men

in this war. Now we have to win it decisively because the Russians don't want this thing to go on forever. At what point then do they decisively try and win the war? And what that looks like, I don't think any of us want to see. Before we transition over to your other experiences in London involving the Sanche, I have to ask you this. I know you're at the House of Lords and this person is in the House of Commons. But was George Galloway with you? George Galloway was not there. I will tell you this, though, something I think everyone will find very exciting. And I'm glad you brought it up because otherwise I would have forgotten, Judge.

But our friend Craig Murray is standing for parliament with George Galloway's party. Wow. Ambassador Murray, who's been on the show. Yes. Oh, that's great to know. Great to know. Now, before we start on Assange, I want to play this clip. The videographer is your friend, J.R. Bradbury. And here is Stella Assange, Julian's wife, speaking outside the courthouse. I want to be very clear. Today marks a turning point. We went into court. And we sat and heard the United States.

Fumbling through their arguments. Trying to paint lipstick on a pig. Well, the judges were not convinced. Everyone can see what's going on here. The United States case is offensive. It offends our democratic principles, it offends our right to know, it is an attack on journalists everywhere. We are relieved as a family that the courts took the right decision today. And as the case goes along, it becomes clearer and clearer to everyone that Julian is in prison for doing good journalism.

The Biden administration should distance itself from this shameful prosecution. It should have done so from day one. Now, in that audience was a handsome young man, photographed also by J.R. Bradbury. Here he is. It must have been a very exciting moment. And I have to correct myself. One of our viewers reminded me, David Cameron is the foreign minister, not the defense minister. I've made this mistake.

I don't even know if the Brits have a defense minister, but whatever. I've made this mistake a few times. I apologize for it. So was everyone surprised that the court summarily rejected the American representations? They really blew it. Instead of making a serious formal commitment by the Department of Justice, they sent a letter over by a political appointee from the embassy. I don't blame the court for rejecting the American assurances. And the assurances were supposed to be that he would get a fair trial, that he would be tried as if he were an American citizen, you have the full panoply of protections under the Bill of Rights, he wouldn't be exposed to the death penalty, and he could make a First Amendment defense. That's very important because the Obama administration was of the conclusion that his work was absolutely defended by the First Amendment, and they declined to indict him. Mike Pompeo talked

President Trump. Mike Pompeo, the same person who was Secretary of State who refused to deny that as head of CIA, he plotted to murder Julian Assange, talked President Trump into authorizing the indictment. I'll let you take it from there. Yeah, Judge, so I was over there. I was the host for the live stream for the Assange team. And preparing for that, I was thinking, what am I going to say when the court rules against him? Because I did not see this happening. see I did not see this happening. Most people did not see this happening. Craig Murray, we just spoke about was the exception or one of the few exceptions.

Craig was was quite confident that the court would rule in favor of Julian and against the American government. because of what you just said. The Americans' insurances were so amateurish. Tepid, yes. Yeah, it seemed, I mean, you read these, Judge, and it's almost as if, you know, they realized that these were due at 4 o'clock and it was 3.30 p.m., you know? I mean, like, they're, anyway, I think what we also saw, though,

and this is what I think why most of us now have a great amount of hope, and as we heard Stella say, we've heard others say, we feel like a corner has been turned, that things have shifted here, because the ludicracy, the emptiness, the vapidity of which the American

argument for the extradition of Julian and eventually his prosecution, the whole reason for his persecution over these last 14 years, essentially, that's been exposed. That what basically they are standing upon is nothing because now their arguments essentially are, he does not have received the right to free speech. No one has the right to free speech outside of an American citizen in the United States under the constitution. And so how could anyone extradite, how can you extradite someone to a nation that does not believe that all people have those same rights, which is a complete repudiation, of course, of our own Bill of Rights. And for people to the talk you just gave him along where you.

The First Amendment reads Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. It doesn't say only for American citizens. Right. And as you point out and others point out, it is the freedom of speech. Right. It exists before anything else. That lecture I gave. God bless you. Right. Exactly. It's natural law. But anyway, so that's what the court was up against.

The court was up against either fall in favor and go along with the Americans and humiliate ourselves. Right. Right. Or recognize that what we would be doing here would be extraditing someone to a country that says that people do not have the right to free speech, which is essentially what the American government was arguing. Now I go back to what we said just a few minutes ago, Judge, when we talked about with the ICJ. You see this continuing crisis deep in the United States. We have all types of problems, economic, legal, right? I mean, et cetera, political, but also too, we have a moral crisis of who we are as a nation, who we are as a people. And you see this where we have our government

overseas attempting to extradite a journalist because he exposed their war crimes and their arguments come down to free speech doesn't exist. Wow. Last question, because we have your friends, the boys, coming on in a few minutes. Did you attempt to, or did you, and if so, did you succeed in visiting Julian? I did, Judge, but in 2014. Oh. So it's been, which is remarkable to me that it has been 10 years since I met him at the Ecuadorian embassy. I mean, the only greater than that kind of improbability that's been 10 years is the cruelty of all this, right?

The suffering that he's endured. And as much as it was so emotional there on Monday when that announcement was made and people were so, so overwhelmed with what that meant with that victory. But that was all tempered. It was all, of course, brought back in the check by the notion that Julian is still sitting in Belmarsh and we have no idea how much longer this appeals process is going to take. All right, Matt, thank you for your time. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for all the time you personally give to all these things. And thanks for coming on this afternoon. We'll see you, we'll see you next week. All my best, dear friend. All right. Thanks, Josh. Of course.

Coming up in three minutes, the round table. It's the end of the day. It's the end of the week. It's the beginning in America of a long holiday weekend. Ray Johnson and, there I go again, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thanks for watching!