Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh: How Serious an Intel Leak?

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

Matt Hoh: How Serious an Intel Leak?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 Tuesday, October 22nd, 2024. 24. Matt Ho will be here with us in just a moment on how serious is the latest intelligence leak revealing the Israeli plans to attack Iran. But first this. A divisive presidential election is upon us and the winner is gold. Let me tell you what I mean. Since 2016, our national debt has grown a staggering 70% and gold has increased by 60%. Do you own gold? I do. I bought my gold in February 2023 and it has risen 33%. You've heard me talk about Lear Capital, the company I trust. Let me tell you why. Recently, Kevin DeMeritt, who is the founder and CEO of Lear, assisted the FBI in discovering a nationwide gold theft ring. And because of Kevin's good work, the FBI caught these people before they could steal anymore. That's why I have been saying the people at Lear are good

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Tuesday afternoons with you. It's great to be able to chat with you and pick your brain. I want to talk to you about the Intel leak that we learned about on Friday, which purports to show American intelligence gathered about the Israeli plans to attack Iran. How significant is a leak of a document this secure? It's very significant, Judge. I mean, this should be a big deal. The information contained, I think, is just color to the black and white detail we know already. No big shock that the Israelis are preparing to attack Iran. There are some details in there from reading from people I follow that may have been surprising to experts, such as this Golden Horizons missile that seems that may not have

been known of before, according to some people. But, you know, for the most part, the leak itself was, you know, it confirms what we know. The Israelis are getting ready to attack Iran. We see the way that the American intelligence system works with various agencies performing different tasks to provide an overlapping structure of intelligence. That's the way it's supposed to work, right? With this idea, you're getting input from various agencies using various sources to give you a robust picture of what's occurring. Also, as well, we see, you know, for anyone who has any doubts, yes, we do spy on our friends all the time and they spy on us. But the significance really is the leak, and who leaked

it, and why was it leaked? And there's various explanations out there, ranging from someone internal, which seems to not be the case, to one of our allies leaked it, one of maybe, you know, a friendly nation may have leaked it, or it may have been a hack, which I think is probably unlikely. But it is significant that a top secret document like this that shows what our satellite intelligence looks like is out there in the world. People in Maryland and Virginia and Washington, D.C. are very unhappy about this. Does this show the U.S. spying on Israel, or does this show what Israel has revealed to the U.S. about what its plans are? When you read the document, particularly the one from NGIA, the National Geospatial Imagery Agency, which are the folks who run the spy satellites.

You could see in that document how some things were done out in the open, the loading of certain missiles onto F-15, say, done in the open. But then there's other references to shrouds being used, gates being closed. So the Israelis know that they're being watched. They're being watched just not by the U.S. though. Other nations have satellites. I can imagine that there was a Russian satellite right next to ours taking photos at the same time or video at the same time as ours was. So it was probably a mix of both. We probably caught some stuff they didn't want us to see, but a lot of it was stuff that they're okay with the world knowing about because, again, they understand that they're constantly being surveilled, just as we're constantly being surveilled. The Russians are being surveilled, the Chinese, the Iranians, etc.

But do they understand that they're constantly being surveilled by us, their supposed and proclaimed but not lawful ally? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I can't imagine they wouldn't. Even 20 some odd years ago when I was going through security briefings, it was understood that our allies spied on us as much as our adversaries. In every post I went to where you had to get read in or given a security briefing, the counterintelligence people would always say that the Israelis, along with the Chinese and one or two other nations, were the biggest threats to our intelligence programs, to our assets, to our information, were the Israelis. So this spying on one another, the theft of one another, certainly Israel's nuclear weapons program exists because the Israelis stole that technology from the U.S.

I mean, so it's just not even things such as videoing and photoing each other's air bases. It's also stealing actual real secrets such as how to build nuclear weapons. Well, these documents don't purport to show plans to use nuclear weapons, do they? I'm sure they don't. We would have. No, but Judge, I'm glad you were bringing this up because that's a key point on the second document, which I think was from the NSA, if I remember correctly, not. And so two different agencies represented here, NASA Security Agency, a part of Department

of Defense, just like NGIA is, and they do the electronics intelligence. They do the eavesdropping, the computer tapping, the phone tapping, that type of thing. And their assessment was that low probability the Israelis were going to use nuclear weapons. I think that's probably about right. The thing about that, though, is that there is a possibility of the Israelis using nuclear weapons. I don't think anyone out there who's being honest and objective, particularly this last year, looking at the situation, will completely rule out the Israelis using a nuclear weapon. So while there is, it's not likely, there still is a possibility they would use one, including in a first strike, this next attack on Iran. What's important about what we're discussing is that

this has been an open secret in Washington, D.C. for decades now. It's this game that the American government plays that the Israelis don't have nuclear weapons when the whole world knows they do. And now we have on paper an American intelligence agency stating clearly that the Israelis do have nuclear weapons. And of course, this is just one more federal law our government is in violation of because under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Acts that we have, as well as a treaty we belong to, we should immediately stop providing assistance to Israel because they have our nuclear power in violation of a whole host of international standards, treaties, and laws, but most especially a nuclear non-proliferation treaty, something that the Israelis never signed. And they don't even admit having these weapons. So again, just another federal law our government's in violation of as they arm and assist Israel as they do. What is your thought, Matt, that this might be

an Israeli ruse, an attempt to mislead and misguide the readers of the documents, particularly those who are reading them in Tehran? Very possibly. I mean, you get into this type of chess game, right, judge, of trying to do a ruse, right, do a feint, do some type of misinformation or disinformation to make the Iranians really think that this little attack will come in the form of air-launched ballistic missiles when the Israelis do something else, right? They do use smaller munitions, smaller drones, and decapitation-type strike, or it's all the cyber attack, or it is, you know, whatever our imaginations can come with. I think this is only part of it. I think whatever we do see from the Israelis and the Americans, because we are fully going to be involved in this one way or another to one degree or another, even if it's just refueling their aircraft, we will have a prominent role in making sure this attack happens.

And it could go, Judge, right, everywhere from just refueling their aircraft and providing them with some intelligence support and surveillance and reconnaissance support all the way up to, you know, effectively doubling the Israeli Air Force. The Israeli Air Force, if I remember correctly, has about 200 fighter bombers total. United States could easily double that with two aircraft carriers and a couple or two or three Air Force squadrons, as well as our B-1s and our B-2s and our B-52s, you know, effectively double the firepower with not much of a, with not much difficulty from the Americans. So that's kind of the range that we're looking at here. But like you said, this may have been some type of ruse to throw the Iranians off and make them think the attack is

going to be one thing when it's the other. I tend to think this is actually what we're going to see along with other forms of attack, whether it's also the launch ballistic missiles or what have you. If you are right, then Prime Minister Netanyahu must be livid. Oh, he is. He is. And the Israelis themselves are getting livid. Today I saw, I had heard this, I had heard this, you know, listening to a podcast or a news program that the drone that Hezbollah sent to Netanyahu's house, yeah, weekend home had hit his bedroom window. And I thought, okay, that's some nice speculation or a good rumor. And then I saw earlier today that the former IDF spokesperson confirmed with photos that that drone had actually hit that window. Normally, you wouldn't let your enemy, your

adversary know how well their attack went, even if they know already, because they're the ones who steered that drone into that window, you still don't confirm it. But in this case, the propaganda value in terms of inciting the Israeli public, inciting the American media, inciting the American Congress, that, of course, is not Hezbollah. It's Iran that tried to kill Netanyahu. And now something really has to be done. So, yeah, the incitements there, the angers there. And as we talk about, Judge, so much of this war, this genocide is not only about seizing land. It's not only about spreading power, but it's about punishment. It's about defeating and punishing your enemies. Violence for the sake of violence itself.

This is the Israeli military way is to kill for the purpose of killing. That in itself is a goal. And so this type of incitement only further heightens that lust. Getting back to the documents that were revealed, Admiral Kirby was asked about this. It's in a telephone call, so there's no video of him, but Chris has put together some not necessarily flattering photos of him. But here's what he had to say, claiming that the president is deeply concerned. Cut number 12. We're not exactly sure how these documents found their way into the public domain.

I know the Department of Defense is investigating this, and I'm sure that as they work through that, they'll try to determine the manner in which they did become public. So I'm just not able to answer your question, whether it was a leak or a hack at this point. We'll let the investigation pursue its logical course there. We're deeply concerned, and the president remains deeply concerned, about any leakage of classified information into the public domain. That is not supposed to happen. And it's unacceptable when it does. So he's deeply concerned about that. And you can rest assured that he will be actively

monitoring the progress of the investigative effort to figure out how this happened. And obviously, he'll be very interested in hearing any mitigation measures and recommendations that come as a result of the investigative efforts and how to prevent it from happening again. I'll use a phrase that everybody uses today. Trump uses it about Harris. She uses it about him. That's word salad. He could have said that in one sentence, but whatever. I get it. I understand the predicament that he's in trying to speak for the National Security Council. Larry Johnson is of the view, one of your colleagues and mine, that this was an official leak. That is, that the U.S. government knew about this leak because they want to do everything to deter and delay an attack on Iran, at least

until after November 6th. He joins your view that it could not have been a hack because this stuff is so highly protected it would be nearly impossible to hack it alistair crook is of the view that the leaker is a hero who wants to prevent world war iii but will not be viewed that way in an american court okay um where do you stand on this sort of sliding scale? And the other thing I've mentioned, also from Larry, is this is off the front pages today. When that 21-year-old in Cape Cod revealed his documents, the Air Force Reserve young man, boy, the press was beating the drum about it for weeks. This stuff is off the front pages already. Right, right.

It shows the bias, of course, of the bias of the media. It lends some credence to what Larry's saying about maybe this is an official leak. Yeah. With regards to the hack, you know, in terms of what we learn from this document, we know the Israelis are preparing to launch an attack. We know the Americans are going along with them. So if it was a foreign entity that did this, why would they reveal that they were able to hack, right? I mean, you don't give up. If you're able to hack and see stuff, you don't give it up just to get some small minor victory like this that has no effect in terms of the policy. What strikes me, Judge, is just the stasis we're in, just that we are all going along with this. We're all being pulled along in this wave. And even just notably, I think my thoughts over the weekend on this was from an Iranian perspective,

why aren't the Iranians counterattacking already? Why aren't they launching a preemptive or preventive attack? That was going to be my next question, Matt. We're thinking alike. Go ahead. Here's all the evidence they need. Of course, you have statements up and down and you know the Israelis are going to do it. The Americans say they're going to do it.

Everyone knows they're going to do it. So why aren't the Iranians already launching an attack when they see that the Israelis are rehearsing for this attack, rehearsing for a mass execution of force, I think is the terminology they use for this. So, you know, I mean, but to me, this weekend, Judge, the horror of just the place that we're in in this world as this is just occurring, as if we're in a stasis, as if there's nothing anyone can do about it, and we're all just patiently waiting for Israel and the United States to launch this attack on Iran that everyone understands will then involve a further, much larger, destructive Iranian attack on Israel that will lead into a regional war. This is not, you know, this is not hyperbole.

We're not exaggerating here. This is what most reasonable people believe is going to happen. And yet we just march along with it. It's just, we're caught up in this wave and the horror of that, that we are just sitting here watching this history begin to happen without being able to do anything. Even as we see, as this document shows, they are preparing. All these words are not just talk. They are actually going to do this, and they're going to use scores of ballistic missiles, plus God knows what else. And they're not going to waste those things on infantry bunkers and on fields. They're going to go against things that are really going to try and hurt. They're really going to try and hurt Iran. And then Iran is really going to try and hurt Israel. And where does that take us? And so it is, I think it's this horror that we're in right now that, you know, comes alongside all these other horrors, watching what's occurring in Gaza,

this surrender or starvation campaign in northern Gaza, the preparations to annex the West Bank, the murder of thousands in Lebanon by Israeli airstrikes. You know, it's just, we are in a moment, Judge, that I have never seen in my life, in the sense of just the consecutiveness, the linkage, just the way we are marching lockstep towards an inevitable cataclysm. I just want to make one more point, if I may. I was at an event yesterday and about 80% Palestinians and Lebanese there at this event and about 200 people, I would say. And at one point it was asked who here has family and friends who have been killed in Palestine or in Lebanon.

And every hand went up, every hand went up. And I've been at a lot of events this year with Palestinians, Lebanese, people from Middle East, but to have it captured in that framework, to sit there and be able to watch it. And as well too, at all these events, at all these rallies and marches and vigils, children are always there. There's always kids there. But maybe because they're swarming around, you can't really lock in on them. You can't see them. But a table I'm sitting at,

I'm sitting next to a Palestinian couple, and they've got their five-month-old little girl with them. And over there, there's a three-year-old boy. And over there is a five-year-old girl. And maybe just having that moment, this other horror of this is what these children look like. The children that are being torn apart by American moms, they look like this little five-month-old girl. They look like that three-year-old boy. And so I think for a lot of us, we are being worn down by the horror that's consuming all of us. And that allows for these things to continue going further because we are being worn down. And, you know, sorry to get like a bit metaphysical here, but this is what we're up against. The psychological and the propaganda in all of this is unlike anything I think the human race has ever experienced.

I want to get back to the documents and at the risk of getting too into the weeds. I understand that the Five Eyes, United States, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and Australia share everything. This document showed that they don't. This document showed that there are some things in the document for just American eyes only. Is this a surprise to MI6 and company? Are they insulted by it or does everybody do this? No, everyone does this. Everyone does this. And just because we have a five eyes category that we share intelligence with these four other nations, English speaking nations of the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, does this. And just because we have a five eyes category that we share intelligence with these, these four other nations, English speaking nations of, you know, the UK, Canada, Australia,

New Zealand, just because we share stuff with them that we don't share with others, doesn't mean that we share everything with them. And so there are things that do not go outside of American eyes, just as there are things that don't go outside Canadian eyes and New Zealand eyes. And, you know, so the five eyes program is something that is unique and special. And if you're ever in contact with particularly, say, the Australians and New Zealanders, they will tell you, the Australians and the Kiwis, they will tell you how important it is for them, how they really feel like they belong because they're part of the Five Eyes program, right? You know, it's really pretty gross.

But back to where you were earlier about killing. Since we were together last, Senwar was assassinated. What is the significance of that? Is it just an ability of Prime Minister Netanyahu to boast, or is it debilitating to Hamas? Oh, as my friend said today, it's pivotal, historical. I would call it myth-making in the sense of providing a foundation, a legend, a hero for the Palestinian people. Why the Israelis released that video of him staring down that drone with only one arm and then throwing that piece of wood at it and making the drone flinch and run away. Why the Israelis released that? I don't

know, because you just have established a man of history, not just for the Palestinians, but for the entire world. We will see T-shirts with exactly as we're seeing with that image of Yavar Simor sitting in that chair with, you know, missing half an arm, staring down that drone, defiant until the last, representing the resistance of his people, representing the liberation of his people. We will see that on t-shirts, on stickers, on posters for decades to come. He is just not going to symbolize Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. He is going to symbolize the developing world, the non-West, those outside the American empire, their resistance to occupation, to oppression, to humiliation. I think it's also interesting as we are talking, the BRICS conference is occurring in Russia right now with 30 countries present, 22 heads of state

present. This is a very, very serious and important event. And so I think you have this imagery of resistance, this hero to the people around the world now, not just the Palestinian people, not just Middle Eastern people, but people around the world of defiance to the American empire. At the same time, you have this major important conference where they're actually setting up the mechanisms to formally defy, formally go against and defeat the American empire. So you have these two things married up. And I think that's really, that coincidence is really quite striking to me. A great conversation, Matt. Thank you very much. Thanks for even, and especially your philosophical derivation of the significance of this. It sounds as though it is your view that

the Israelis did far more harm to themselves than to the Palestinians by assassinating Sinwar and showing that video of the last moments of his life. Well, they certainly, it depends on who the audience was, right? The audience was internal and they got their celebrations. They have their, the political gain. The, you know, this weekend, Judge, I was corrected. And I want to thank the person who corrected me on this because I have been under the impression

that there is a moderate aspect to the Israeli political machine, those who have the ability to gain power in Israel, who would have, we could call, if we could completely bastardize the word, moderate position on the Palestinians, where they would essentially want to roll the clock back to October 6th. Don't tell me there's none. That's my understanding. As I've been informed that that is

not possible, that the range of options now for those who can take power in Israel, not including the present governing coalition, of which half of the cabinet is in favor of settling Gaza, and the other half is just haven't found the voice yet to say they want to do that. But even among the Yerlapids, the Benigons, the best you're going to see is going to be a military occupation. So that seems to be the range of options going forward for the Israelis and for the Palestinians. God help them is either military occupation through full ethnic cleansing and settlement. And, of course, we saw this past weekend the conference by the Likud party on settling Gaza, the commentary coming out of that

from very serious and important people that it will be a full settlement, not just parts of Gaza. And that seems to be the pathway that they are on. And exterminating people like Yaya Simuar israelis is important because it shows progress even if all it actually does is increase the resistance but again we get back to this point that the israelis think as long as they have the americans with them they can do anything and you saw it certainly saw the american commentary on the death of of simuar whether for our politicians

and for our media just labeling him as a terrorist, a thug, a criminal, a bloodthirsty maniac who got what he deserved. And so the Americans who are important to this Israeli project are in, as they say, they're ironclad in their support for Israel. And as long as Israel has that, they feel they can do whatever they want. Thank you, Matt. My pleasure. All the best. We'll see you again next week. All right. Thanks, Judge. Of course. Coming up at three o'clock this afternoon, Eastern, on many of these topics and a little bit of a twist. We're going to talk to Karen Kwiatkowski about do elections matter? Does it matter who's in the White House, or is the government really run by people who are always there?

Three o'clock today, Karen Kwiatkowski, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.