Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern: What Happened in Moscow?

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Ray McGovern: What Happened in Moscow?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. Ray McGovern joins us now. Ray, a pleasure, my dear friend, no matter what we're talking about. Thank you very much for your time and your analysis. You're welcome. I want to start with the tragedy in Moscow on Friday night where, as most people following things know, four gunmen shot up and then apparently caused to be exploded a a concert house, and 139 people are dead and countless, I don't even think they know the number yet, are wounded. The four gunmen have supposedly

been caught. But within 55 minutes of the mainstream media announcing what happened, American Intel or State Department, I'm not so sure who, you may know, said, oh, it wasn't Ukraine. So is something like that believable in 55 minutes? And why would the American government be making a statement like that? Not, we're sorry about this, not Joe Biden has called Vladimir Putin, but don't blame Ukraine. It's very suspicious, isn't it? Yes. We didn't do it. Ukrainians didn't do it. You know, it stinks to high heaven. Not only did we immediately say, unasked, actually, this was gratuitous. The creators had nothing to do with this.

But we also blamed it immediately on this obscure, malleable entity of ISIS. I mean, that was immediate, too. So you don't have to be paranoid. You don't have to be a Russian to suspect, my God, how did they all know this? I mean, and then, of course, Putin, in his very measured but very strong response the day after, said that, you know, there was this window open in Ukraine. These fellows were captured driving to Ukraine, and they had contact in Ukraine. Now, the Russians are not such as to jump to conclusions. They have an investigation going on. They have the four people. They're going to probably get

to the bottom of this to find out who is behind it. One other thing I'll just say, Judge, curiously enough, I seldom read the comments under our sessions, but I did on Friday, okay? And Larry and I, of course, talked about this, and Larry, I think, was quite right. But the comments immediately connected it with the nasty surprises that Victoria Luland predicted, you know, last time she was in Kiev in an unannounced, you know, unprofessional interview before she got on the plane. Not only that, but I learned later that Budanov, the head of army intelligence in Ukraine, said exactly the same thing. Look out for nasty surprises.

So you put all that stuff together. You wait for the results of the investigation. And I think that Putin will react strongly. I do not think he'll engage in terrorism. He has the upper hand in Ukraine. He has already attacked one of their intelligence centers. Here's what he said. Cut ten, Chris.

This is President Putin's first comments on the attack on the concert hall. 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 found 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. 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. I mean, you'd expect a statement like that, and there was no bombast. It was obviously his typically measured statement. Here's President Zelensky of Ukraine saying, effectively, if there weren't so many Russian soldiers in Ukraine killing Ukrainians, they could have been, this is a non sequitur, but this is what he said, they could have been guarding and protecting the concert site and no terrorists would have gotten through. Cut five. Instead of dealing with his Russian citizens, addressing them, Putin remained silent for a day. I was thinking about how to link this with Ukraine. Everything is absolutely predictable. The hundreds of thousands of Russians who are now killing on Ukrainian land would be enough to stop any terrorists and if the russians are ready to silently die in crocus hall and not ask any questions to their security and intelligence agencies putin will try to turn such a situation to his personal

advantage again terrorists must always lose to thank everyone who truly defends life. So I don't know how professional this was. It doesn't seem very professional. They left in the same car in which they arrived. The car was white with a black roof. It stood out like a sore thumb. They chased the car to a non-populated area so that when they stopped the car, these guys wouldn't get out and kill people or take hostages. They had apparently discarded their weapons already. And yes, it was aiming for Ukraine. Is something like this the type of thing that U.S., British, Israeli intel would have known about ahead of time, whether you can connect the dots to Victoria Nuland or not?

I think it probably is. When the Ukrainians, like Zelensky, blame this on a false flag attack, which several of them have. It's just crazy, you know, 133 at last count. A false flag attack would mean the Russians attacked their own people to make it appear as though the Ukrainians had done it. That's correct. Now that's reminiscent of what General Petraeus told the premier, the prime minister of Afghanistan, when 20 Afghan children were killed in an airstrike by U.S. forces, he said, you know, we think that the parents of those children deliberately killed them so that they could blame the United States. Petraeus said

that his associates with Karzai at the time were thoroughly embarrassed, and the story was so heinous that it appeared on the front of the Washington Post at the time. That's the kind of example we set, you know? So, you know, false flag, sure, kill children, yeah, false flag. So that's not going to work this time. We have a really good article written by Dmitry Trenin, who is a very high official in, especially if, as this is likely, the Russian investigation showed that not only the Ukrainians were behind this, but that ipso facto, some of the Secret Service people belonging to the United States were also knowledgeable of this and did not give us specifics. In addition to that, we have high-level Russian officials, Peskov, if I recall correctly. Say Peskov is the John Kirby of Moscow, saying that, you know, we used to talk about a special military operation sorry folks that's over it's it's war now would properly call this a war and uh there's no getting around the fact that nato is right behind zolinski it's a war against the collective west the um president of the european, which I guess is the governing executive branch of the governing body of the European Union, said over the weekend it's time for Europe to convert to a war economy.

What is he talking about? Well, number one, there are people who profiteer from war economies, right? I mean, law, I don't have to spell that out. The Mickey Mac, the military-industrial complex. That's one thing. The other thing is this bugaboo that if Putin is allowed to take over all Ukraine, Poland will be next, the Baltics next. He'll be on the English channel before you know

it. That's what the British call bollocks or rubbish, okay? As a matter of fact, there's a very good counter indication of that because Putin did stop. He stopped in early April 2022, just six weeks after the war began, because the Ukrainians agreed not to join NATO, for God's sake. It's on the record. The negotiators from Ukraine admit it. And these are not sort of dissidents. These are the heads of Zelensky's own party. Chapter and verse, they agreed to a deal where the violence would stop and the Kremlin did stop, okay? So what does that say about he's going to not stop, not stop? Well, he already stopped and people don't know that. We knew that at the time. You know where it was, Judge? It was in Ukrainska Pravda, for God's sake. It was no secret at the time this happened when Boris Johnson came in and the whole story unraveled, but nobody knew it because it was suppressed in the mainstream media.

Is the mentality of MI6 and CIA, and I'll throw Mossad in there and you can take Mossad out if you think it's irrelevant to the rest of the question ray but is the mentality of the operations branches of those entities not the people that analyze data like you and larry but the people who did what jack do what jack devine did uh stage coups and overthrow governments is that mentality such that they would participate in, facilitate, or look the other way as innocents were slaughtered? I mean, these people in the theater were totally and utterly innocent of any known wrongdoing, and most of them were young people. Would the American government, the British government, the Israeli government, allow their intelligence, senior intelligence people to behave that way? They would. Now, let's accept the Israelis here,

put them aside. The British and the Americans, some of their operatives in Ukraine undoubtedly knew what Budanov, the feast behind this, and Victoria Nuland had in mind. Who's Budanov? Budanov is the head of military intelligence. He's the guy that specializes in these kind of what the Russians used to call bokryadela, wet operations, okay? He's in charge of military intelligence for Ukraine. That's correct, yeah.

Okay. Hold on. Okay, go ahead, please, Ray. He is Russian, by the way. His parents were born in Russia. Anyhow, so he's the guy. He would be the interlocutor with Victoria Nuland the last time she was there. And again, that very curious interview that she gave just before she got back on the plane.

It was not in any office or any studio. It was on a street. And she improvised it. You see the very nasty surprises from Mr. Putin. Well, you know, your commentators under Larry and I, Larry and my thing on Friday, were very perspicacious because they immediately said, oh, Vermont Nolanser, Vermont Nolanser. Half of them put together right away. So, yeah, I think that it's not a stretch. of that branch of intel in MI6 and CIA does not have moral qualms about knowingly allowing innocents to be slaughtered, no matter what kind of an oath to what kind of a constitution, to what kind of moral values they have sworn? The CIA and MI6 are out of the control of their political leaders. In this case, I would imagine that even Director Burns is not fully informed of what these guys do. They have plenty of money. They have plenty of capabilities with armaments and so forth. They're free to do what the hell

they want to do. If they get a nod from Victoria Noland, not necessarily from President Biden, they'll do it because they can. These are the same guys that blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. Okay? They'll do it because they can. And there's no rein in on this. The president is authorized by the National Security Act 1947. It says that the director of intelligence, director of central intelligence can perform such other functions and duties as the president can from time to time direct. So the president is sort of the head of this Gestapo. He's not answerable to anyone.

And the Gestapo itself doesn't always tell the president what's going on. Doesn't even tell the secretary of state. I don't know what happened in this case, but it wouldn't put it past the folks on the ground there in Kiev, not necessarily the folks on the ground in Washington, to know what was being planned and not at all be surprised and be prepared immediately with a cover story. We didn't do it. Ukraine didn't do it. We know who did it. It was ISIS. We're going to take a break for a commercial announcement. When we come back, Ray and I will discuss the latest in Ukraine. We will also give you the results of the poll that we are

taking, in which more than a thousand of you have voted already, expressing your opinion about whether Ukraine was or was not involved in this catastrophe in Moscow on Friday evening. But first this. How do you really feel about your financial future right now, today? Stable or uncertain? Despite all the happy talk that the Fed and the banks want you to buy into, I believe that 2024 is going to be a very unstable year, politically and financially. That's one of the reasons I decided to buy physical gold and silver. And I suggest you should do the same and do it now. Why?

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move portions of their retirement savings into Lear gold and silver IRAs. It's easy to do and it's tax and penalty free. Don't be caught off guard. Experts predict the markets may tank again. You'll be happy if you have protection in place. So call Lear at 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620, or go to learjudgenap.com and tell them your friend the judge sent you. Welcome back. As promised, the results of this poll and the voting is still going on. Over 1,300 of you have voted so far. 95% are of the belief that Ukraine was involved. 5% take a different view. Boy, you have amazing powers of persuasion, Professor McGovern. I mean, it's the nature of our perception of the lawlessness and amorality of the operations branches of Western intel,

which causes us to come to these conclusions. As you say, it's the same mentality, probably not the same human beings, but the same mentality that blew up the Nord Stream pipeline and then blamed it on Russia, even though Russia suffered exquisitely from the destruction of the pipeline. convinced that Putin is there to stay? And are they convinced that this war in Ukraine, initially crafted by Mrs. Nuland to use Ukraine as a battering ram to drive him from office, is not going to succeed? Let me give you a small example of what's going on in Europe. Before the coup in Kiev that we orchestrated, Mrs. Nuland being at the core of that, there was real problems in the armaments industry in Europe. Mafei in Germany and its French counterpart couldn't build the common European battle tank because there was no enemy. What a bummer! Stocks, choo-choo! In 2014, all that changed. It was terrific for the all-movements industry, and that's what's happening now. So first and foremost,

it's very real, this military industrial complex, even more in Europe than it is in our country. So that's why these people are saying, well, Putin's going to go all the way to the English Channel, unless we stop him. And the way we stop him may take five years to stop before he does it. So we have five years, we spend all our excess money, and we go into more deficit by pouring more money into the people who are already very rich, the people who profiteer. Is Mossad on the ground in Ukraine, or are they totally focused on Gaza and the West Bank? Well, I'm sure they're on the ground in Ukraine. I don't think that that's a priority for them right now.

They have their hands full in Gaza. Things are not going well there. It looks like, well, it looks very, very bad for what's about to happen with a U.S. tacit approval or at least acquiescence. So that's why they're focused right now on Gaza. As we speak, there's a delegation of Israeli leaders led by Ron Dermer, who was born and raised in New Jersey, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations,

now I think number two or three or four in the Netanyahu coalition government, and by Defense Minister Gallant. It's not realistic, is it, that the Pentagon or the White House or the State Department can talk these people out of their impending, threatened, and promised invasion of Rafah? Is it? Judges, it's all smoke and mirrors. The reality on the ground is that the Israelis are not prepared militarily to go into Rafah. Now, they can bomb the hell out of it, but they can't send their ground troops in there for several months, I am advised. So this is all shadowboxing. We're trying to tell them not to do that. They say, well, we're going to do it anyway.

As long as they keep this little charade going, we don't want them to do that. But we're not going to tell them not to do that. And meanwhile, we'll do idiot types of ceasefire proposals at the UN that are not ceasefire independent proposals with no preconditions. They have to do with hostages as well. That was shut down. I guess it was Friday that happened. And the world looks on at this, and we all look on, at the killing of 90 children a day in Gaza? I mean, where's the world's conscience here? What is it that is preventing the IDF from this ground assault that Netanyahu has promised? Well, they've been bloodied, okay? They had some 20 brigades in Gaza. At last count, there were only three left. They're back for refitting and rearming and morale boosting, okay? So that's the operative fact here that I have been able to discern. They're not

ready to go in there. Hamas is much more powerful than they thought. And so this is a charade that goes on for a couple of months until the Israelis are ready. And then chances are they will go in and the U.S. will wring its hands. We try to tell them not to, but, you know, it's a very, very sad situation. Here's Congressman Roe Kahana. You know, he's a progressive lefty, but he is absolutely terrific on civil liberties and war and peace. Grilling the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin. He can't answer, but you'll see his answer on how many people have died.

Cut number two, Chris. Mr. Secretary, about how many Palestinian women and children have been killed by Israel since October 7th? It's over 25,000. Mr. Secretary, last week the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that any transfer of weapon or ammunition to Israel violates international law. About how many precision-guided munitions has the United States given Israel since the beginning of the war?

SECRETARY BLINKEN I don't have that number at my fingertips, but we have endeavors to — MR. Mr. Secretary, it's about 21,000 precision-guided munitions to Israel since the start of the war. Well, how could a member of Congress know and the Secretary of Defense not know? He obviously doesn't want to give the answer. I was surprised that he gave a candid, rather cold, dispassionate, almost indifferent answer.

Oh, only 25,000 women and children have been killed. The number will likely treble. I would think if they invade Rafah, you have a million and a quarter people living in a city built to house a quarter of a million. So a million extra human beings there. The extra million were chased down from the north when the IDF said, leave, leave, leave, because we're going to bomb. Oh, by the way, we're going to bomb the place we send you to. I don't know your thoughts. Actually, before your thoughts were up to 1,700 votes, and it's about the same. It's now 94% Ukraine involved, 6% not.

I give credit to Larry Johnson primarily for that because he was unequivocal in coming to that conclusion on Friday, just hours after the event. Well, Larry, like you, pointed out this denial was preposterous because it came out right after the killing stopped immediately. How could anybody possibly have known who it was or who it wasn't at that point in time? Back to Israel and Gaza before we leave. Has the IDF given up the ghost on the total ethnic cleansing of southern Gaza by land? Oh, no, no, not at all. They're just not ready yet. It'll take months, according to the military experts I've consulted, to kind of tune up, replace their losses, and then take on a much more formidable Hamas than they thought they would be encountering. So, you know, what happens in the

next few weeks is going to be key. And unless the US does more than wring its hands, unless the US comes to its senses, the US after all is the enabler, is this arms supplier, is the political supporter of this genocide. And I'm embarrassed to have to say that. Here's, again, war and peace sometimes can make strange, or I shouldn't say strange, interesting bedfellows. Here's Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, commonly known by her initials as AOC, with my friend Jake Tapper on one of the talk shows over the weekend arguing that Israel is precipitating a mass famine. Number seven, Chris. The Israeli government and leaders in the Israeli government are intentionally denying, blocking and slow walking this aid and are precipitating a mass famine. I believe we have crossed the threshold of intent. It is horrific. I think it is extremely clear and it is extremely important that all people understand the difference between people and their governments,

Israelis and the Israeli government, Palestinians from Hamas. But what we are seeing here, I think, with a forced famine is beyond our ability to deny or explain away. There is no targeting of Hamas in precipitating a mass famine of a million people, half of whom are children. I think she's right on the mark, don't you? I do, yeah. And, you know, famine, hunger, starvation is something that everybody should be able to relate to. And the fact that we allow this to continue is a very sad chapter in the history of our country. And I don't know what it will take, but I think it will take more than what we're doing now. Physically putting our bodies on the line to make sure that the Biden administration realizes, and Blinken and Sullivan and the rest of them as well,

they're not going to get away with this and they should stop it as soon as possible. Thank you, Ray. No matter what we talk about, it's a pleasure to be able to pick your brain. I'll see you Thursday this week because of Good Friday on brain. I'll see you Thursday this week because of Good Friday on Friday. I'll see you Thursday this week with Larry for the Intelligence Community Roundtable and our wrap-up of the week's events. Thank you, my friend. All the best. Thank you, Judge. The aforestated Larry, of course, is Larry Johnson at 11 o'clock this morning and at 2 this afternoon, Kevin DeMeritt on what a war economy will look like.

Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.