Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern: US and UK Weigh Confiscating Russian Assets

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

A timely conversation, with Ray McGovern. We have the privilege of discussing the intricate geopolitical developments surrounding the provocative title of this episode: "US and UK Weigh Confiscating Russian Assets" with McGovern, a seasoned veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This discussion delves into the complex world of international relations, finance, and the delicate balance of power between nations, particularly focusing on the heightened tensions involving Russia.Ray McGovern, drawing upon his extensive experience in intelligence and analysis, brings a unique perspective to the table. As we explore the potential implications and motivations behind the consideration of confiscating Russian assets by the United States and the United Kingdom, Mr. McGovern's insights promise to offer a nuanced understanding of the geopolitical chessboard.#russia #ukraine #USMilitaryHistory #Israel #Gaza #ceasefire #hostages #Ukraine #zelenskyy #Biden #china #IsraelPalestine #MiddleEastConflict #PeaceInTheMiddleEast #GazaUnderAttack #Ceasefire #Jerusalem #prayforpeace #hostages #Israel #Gaza #ceasefire #hostages #Ukraine #zelenskyy #Biden #china #IsraelPalestine #MiddleEastConflict #PeaceInTheMiddleEast #GazaUnderAttack #Ceasefire #Jerusalem #prayforpeace #hostagesSee 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, December 18th, 2023. Ray McGovern joins us now for his regular Monday morning Eastern time hit with us. Ray, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Welcome back to the show. Is the war in Ukraine effectively over? Oh, yes, it is. It is all but for the attempts by this administration to save face.

The Russians have made it clear that they're going to keep a-tritting, a-tritting, a-tritting, not doing anything really big. Putin himself has said this now. But the war is lost. The most significant factor, by hungary from approving some 56 billion for for support for ukraine and the money for ukraine is is held up in the u.s congress as well we won't know until early january will there be any money at all uh my contacts tell me that they have enough to get by for another couple of months, but not. And this is what's important. Not enough to get by to the election in November.

And that, of course, is paramount in everybody's minds. When you say the Ukraine government has enough to get by, you're talking about more than funding the war, aren't, isn't the United States or isn't the West effectively funding the government of Ukraine, paying civil servants, paying medical bills for veterans, as well as supplying ammunition and hardware? That's correct. It's the whole schmear. Ukraine couldn't float, stay afloat without U.S. and EU monetary aid. Is there, I guess this is a sign of how bad things are, that Ukrainian recruitment officials are kidnapping people from bars and public street corners and bringing them to recruitment centers and then the equivalent, although it's a shortened and dangerous form of it because it's so short,

of basic training. Sort of like when the British were impressing people into the British Navy or when we had a draft here, except it was a little more orderly here. A little more orderly. They've been doing this for months. They're recruiting people 17 years of age up to into 70s. I'm glad I'm immune from that. I don't know if they're doing 80-year-olds yet, but, yeah, that shows how desperate they are. And, you know, this is not going over well with the populace. Finally,

the Ukrainian people figure, well, you know, what's in this for us? Maybe we ought to have a ceasefire. Maybe we ought to stop this carnage. Carnage, not quite as bad as that in Gaza, but getting that bad, you know, 400,000 Ukrainian young men killed that's a lot and and the Russian military doesn't have the slightest interest in demolishing Ukraine or slaughtering Innocence or attacking hospitals or cemeteries as is going on in Gaza the Russian military is concentrating on the Ukraine military, period. Am I right? Well, that's right. They're inching forward along that long 1,000-kilometer line between Ukraine and Russia.

And Putin made it clear that, you know, we could go faster and farther. And my military people told me I should, but this is fine. And Putin made it clear that, you know, we could go faster and farther. And my military people told me I should. But this is fine. We'll just keep attriting, attriting, attriting until the West wises up and comes to terms. And the terms are getting much more difficult for the West, as everyone seems to know. Tell me about the intelligence community. Surely Russian intelligence knows how much longer the Ukraine military can last without USAID. Surely it knows how much USAID President Zelensky has requested. Surely it knows how little. aid President Zelensky is getting. Am I giving the Russian intelligence too

much credit, or is it common knowledge in the intelligence community that the Russians know the desperate straits that the Ukrainian government and military are in as we speak? Of course they do. I would say that the Russians are present in Kiev in equivalent numbers to what the U.S. is present. They have contacts. They know what's going on in Ukraine. They know that Ukraine has lost. The question is whether Joe Biden and the acolytes around him realize that it's lost. It's hard to think that they don't realize that, but you know,

they're going to keep this going as long as they can so they're not embarrassed before the election. That's a fool's errand in my view. I want to play a clip that you sent us early this morning, Ray. This is Averill Haynes, who is the DNI, the Director of National Intelligence, the nominal head of the government's acknowledged and publicly known 17 intelligence agencies. Maybe there's more. Who knows? Another story for another time, but of the field of your expertise. But we'll play, Ms. Haynes, and then I'm anxious to hear your thoughts on it. How quickly is Russia burning through its military stockpiles of munition? I think I can give you precise numbers in this forum, but quite quickly. I mean, it's really

pretty extraordinary. And our own sense is that they are not capable of indigenously producing what they are expending at this stage. So that is going to be a challenge, and that's why you see them going to other countries effectively to try to get ammunition. And, of course, you know, we've indicated that their precision munitions are running out much faster in many respects. They have a lot of stockpiles. How viable those stockpiles are, how much they have, what they can use in different conflicts are obviously all questions that we look at quite carefully with our allies and partners. Is this credible, Ray? No, it's incredible. It was incredible last December, a year ago, when she said those things. I mean, if I were Biden and I were a compass mentis, I would get rid of these clowns. I mean, if I were Biden and I were a compass mentor, I would get rid of these clowns. I mean, he's in a real fix now because they told him what he

wanted to hear. Bill Burns, the head of the CIA, said the same thing in December of last year. Russia is taking it on a chin. Doesn't look like they're going to last very long. I mean, hello, everything that Avril Haines said there is 180% away from the truth, and reality has set in now. It looks like even Congress is getting wise to the fact that throwing more money at Ukraine is not going to solve anything. Chris, play the Biden montage. I don't know if we showed you this, Ray. We may have shown it to you on Friday in the Intelligence Roundtable. But this is President Biden saying Putin has already lost.

Then he says, we're going to give you whatever you need for as long as it takes. And then he says, we're going to give you what we can. And then he says, well, Putin might take Ukraine. Putin's war of conquest is failing. Russia's military has lost half its territory it once occupied. It's worth fighting for, for as long as it takes. And that's how long we're going to

be with you, Mr. President, for as long as it takes. We'll do it. And we're advancing this goal by providing them the support Ukraine needs now on the battlefield and helping them strengthen their military over the long term. The fact of the matter is that I believe we'll have the funding necessary to support Ukraine as long as it takes. The American people can be and should be incredibly proud of the part they played in supporting Ukraine's success. We'll continue to supply Ukraine with critical weapons and equipment as long as we can. If Putin takes Ukraine, he won't stop there. It's important to see the long run here.

He's going to keep going. He's made that pretty clear. Putin attacks a NATO ally. Then we'll have something that we don't seek and that we don't have today. American troops fighting Russian troops. American troops fighting Russian troops if he moves into other parts of NATO. Let's start at the end, Ray, because his attitude changed a little bit with political reality, although saying Putin lost the war in that statement 10 months ago, there's no basis for that unless the intel people told him. We'll get to that in a minute. We'll start at the end. If Putin takes Ukraine, obviously a premise for which there is no basis in reality, Putin doesn't want to take Ukraine, can't take Ukraine. The last thing in the world he wants to do is to govern Ukraine and deal with a guerrilla insurgency. If he takes Ukraine, he will then attack NATO. What would be the basis for this,

other than pure political fantasy and scare tactics? There's no basis in reality to this, is there? No, except for people like Fiona Hill and other people who studied at Harvard under Richard Pipes and think that the Russians are just the same as the Soviets way back several decades ago. No, even Republican representatives and senators are now saying this is preposterous. There's no indication that Putin's going to go any farther than he believes he needs to go to secure the frontier with Ukraine. Now, that's a big slice of Ukraine. Our prediction is that he will go up to the Dnieper

River slowly, but surely. And then the deal is going to be much more adverse to NATO and to Ukraine. Odessa, the pearl that sits right there on the Black Sea, Putin has said that's a Russian city. Everyone knows that's a Russian city. We know that's a Russian city. Well, you know, just a year ago, he was saying we could deal. It could be a center for accommodation, Odessa. Now it looks like Russia is going to take Odessa as well. So the game is up in Ukraine. The more so since they will not get any more money necessary to. So it depends on the play in Ukraine between Zelensky,

the head of the armed forces, and Zelensky. It looks like Biden and his coterie are still supporting Zelensky. How long that will last is anybody's guess. Way back when, when we started these very fruitful conversations, you and Larry Johnson and Scott Ritter and others and Matthew Ho with experience in the intelligence community, even Tony Schaefer, who at times changes his view a little bit, but on this I think he's sound and consistent, have told us of the dangers of the intelligence community telling the president what they think he wants to hear. We're not talking about the people on the ground like you guys were who gather uh who do their best and risk their lives to gather real raw data and then other guys like you guys have been analyzing it we're talking about management that communicates

between the intelligence community and the white house putting spin on things and telling joe biden um tony blinken ll, Lloyd Austin, even though he has his own intelligence gaggle over there, what he wanted to hear. Question, are they still doing that? Or have we reached a point in the war where it is imperative that they tell him truthfully what's going on on the ground, not the political nonsense that they were feeding to the Washington Post. Judge, this is not the first time that the U.S. intelligence has lied to the president, misleading him. Vietnam is fresh in my mind. When the Tet Offensive came, the lies about the unpreparedness of the Viet Cong were revealed.

And President Johnson convened some sane advisors and they decided we've got to quit this thing, stop the bombing, go to negotiations. And Mr. President, be good idea if you didn't run again. That was March 1968. Problem today, there are no sane people around. There are no advisors that will go to Biden and say, look, you know, we got it wrong. We got to fish or cut bait. It's time to cut bait. These people, you saw Avril Haines. Now she runs the president's daily brief, as well as national intelligence estimates. And look And look at the drivel she's telling the president just one short year ago. So will the president dismiss these people? No, he's not up to that.

Will he keep listening to the likes of Blinken and Sullivan and these so-called intelligence people? Well, I guess he will. And they're telling them apparently that if the Russians take Ukraine, they'll take the rest of Europe, which is preposterous, which is blather. All right. We're going to take a break for a commercial announcement. When we come back, the latest on North Korea, what offensive weaponry, what level of technical proficiency in offensive weaponry has North Korea just tested? But first this. Can you believe the chaos confronting Americans today? The government is out of control. Debt is out of control and have you heard the dollar is under attack this will soon be replaced by digital currency no more paper cash it's coming fast so you need to get educated in other ways

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So what level of weaponry was just tested by North Korea? Who helped them produce it? How is this significant to American national security and Russian-American relations, Ray? Well, the bottom line here is that Russia has given North Korea a most sophisticated intercontinental ballistic missile, an ICBM. It's mobile. It's a big deal. It's solid fuel, also a big deal. And it can cover the whole United States with decoys up the kazoo and shaft and everything else to defeat any ABM missile system. This is an example of how the picture here comes from yesterday.

It's very clear that the North Koreans have this now, and it's worrying because as Ted Postol, head of the physics professor emeritus at MIT and chief advisor to the chief of naval operations way back when, he and his colleagues, the good ones, the ones he trusts, have decided that this is a very, very unusual move because the Russians don't give this kind of technology out of their control. Is there a possibility they still control it, that the North Koreans can't really use it without some sort of special permission from Russia? We don't know about that, but U.S. planners can't depend on that, of course. So this is a major uptick. And it's in response not only to North Korean wishes to respond to what the U.S. is doing and what South Korea is doing with nuclear weaponry out in their area. But it's also part of this Putin determination saying, look, we're really serious here.

You want World War III? You get a World War III. There's even talk on Russian talk shows about a half million North Korean soldiers coming into Europe to fight with the Russians if need be. I don't think that's in the cards, but the very talk about such things. So the relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang has never been so close. China, of course, knows about this, and Soto Voce approves, and this is a big deal. Last thing here, when this missile was tested in July, July 12th, Postal wrote a major, major piece on this, And Jake Sullivan was asked at one of these press gaggles, well, what about this? Russian technology, Russian ICBMs in North Korea? And he said, yes, this is concerning. We're going to have the intelligence community look into that. Well, one would have thought that since they're berating the Russians for everything else,

they would berate them for this too. And I can only surmise that it's just too embarrassing. It's just too embarrassing and too tentative to argue that, hey, the Russians are so forward on this kind of thing, that they're doing something that not only contravenes UN regulations and so forth, but it's very, very volatile, giving it to a not completely stable country like North Korea. How sophisticated is the missile system that Russia gave them? It's almost the most sophisticated that they have. As I say, it has all kinds of shaft, all kinds of reentry vehicles, all kinds of ways to defeat countermeasures and ABM systems.

And as I say, it covers the whole United States. Now, there have been North Korean missiles that have been argued, well, they could make it anywhere in the United States, but this one surpasses all the others in sophistication. And as I mentioned, it's immobile, so you can't really detect it. It's only 50 tons, I'm told. Now, that's little. Most of them are 150 tons, okay? And it has all the latest technology, all the bells and whistles on it. It surprises me that the Russians would give this kind of missile to North Korea. But I think we have to deal with it. It's there and it is a Russian missile. And can it reach anywhere in the continental United States? Can it reach Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Chicago? It could reach Mar-a-Lago. It could reach anywhere in the United States and more. Why, you know, there could be a two-front war

here, a three-front war now. This decision had to have been made early this year or last year because the first testing of this missile was in April. The big one was in July, and it was July that we had the telemetry and everything else to show exactly what this missile was. So what will Andrew Sullivan say today? I assume he's listening to this program when the gaggle asks him, well, you said that the intelligence community would look at this four months ago. What does the intelligence community think? And it's going to be very embarrassing for him to answer that honestly, but I suppose we shouldn't expect that of Jake Sullivan. Wouldn't the intelligence community have known about this before?

What actually happened? It was test fired or they announced that they have it? It was test fired. That was the first real indication. Now, test fire on July 12th was the big one, okay? Now, this one that they're testing goes up in the air so it doesn't go over Japanese airspace, okay? But its range is very clear. Its range takes in the whole United States, including Florida, as I said. So, yeah, it would need another test or two to make sure the telemetry and the guidance and the software all works. But it's there. And the surprise is, number one, that the Russians gave it to them, and number two, that the U.S. is keeping

us close to the chest, whereas one would have thought that they would accuse the Russians up and down of doing this dangerous, and it is dangerous, move. Wouldn't the U.S. intelligence community have known about this before it was tested? Hopefully. But, you know, whether the people down in the bowels of the CIA or the Pentagon were able to get this message up to the people like Averill Haynes, who we saw before, that's another thing. Or whether if they did, she would tell the president, you know, does she want to tell the president this bad news? I don't know what the answer to that is, but probably, well, we know for sure they knew about it on July 12th or 13th when it was fired and when Ted Postle wrote that very, very good article. And consulting with all the people that he's worked with over the years, showing that, yeah, this is what it is, Russian missiles. Surprise, surprise.

The Russians are really serious about that. They want the United States to know that it could be a two-front thing, and not only China, but a less stable, more unpredictable country like North Korea could do you real harm now. Don't provoke them. When this happens, do the Russians just send software and hardware to North Korea, or do they send Russian engineers to install, operate, and maintain this? I'm told that they gave them the whole nine yards, the software and everything else. Now, the software is such that you can fool around with it, right? You can put something in the software that would make sure that the Russians have the final say as to how this thing would be used once it's loaded. I know that because that's what the experts tell me.

How can we know whether that's the case or not? We can. And so the Pentagon has to plan for the worst, of course, has to plan for the fact that in extremis, that thing could be used now. Usually, it would take one or two more tests to make sure that the software and everything else works perfectly. But, you know, it's a danger there, and I can only interpret Putin's move to allow this to happen as an indication of how close their relationship with North Korea is and how North Korea is helping them with various missiles, with various ammunition and other things for Ukraine. Here's a picture of how South Koreans were watching this yesterday on North Korean TV. This is actually a different missile because you can see the plume there, that's a liquid-fueled missile. But the one that appeared in more authoritative things showed that the plume indicated a solid-fueled missile. And, of course, that makes all the difference in the world.

That's the latest technology. The North Koreans have had that for tactical missiles for some time. They have not had it for a strategic missile that could reach all of the United States and farther. Got it. Wow. More to keep people from up at night. Ray, thanks very much. We'll see you again at the end of the week in our Intelligence Roundtable with our good buddy, Larry Johnson. Most welcome. All the best. Coming up, the aforementioned Larry Johnson at 11 o'clock this morning, Eastern Time, and at two this afternoon, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!