Judging Freedom - Russia Intensifies Attacks, Zelenskyy Predicts Ukraine Victory, Phil Giraldi

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, May 8th, 2023. It's about three o'clock in the afternoon on the east coast of the United States. Phil Giraldi joins us for his regular weekly time with us. Phil, over the weekend, Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky taped a speech. I guess it was for the Western world because it's in English, it's not in ukrainian very very highly produced speech will show you a little clip uh in which he promises to defeat russia and boasts that this will be uh a victory uh for europe and for the west take a listen take a look we fight now so that no one ever again enslaves other nations and destroys other countries. And all those old evils that modern Russia is bringing back will be defeated just as Nazism was defeated.

We will not lose what we have gained. We will return everything captured by the enemy. We will rebuild what was destroyed. And together we will protect it all we do not yet know the date of our victory but we know that it will be a holiday for all of Ukraine for all of Europe for all of the entire free world for all of Ukraine for all of Europe for all of the entire free world I misspoke it is in Ukrainian and there is a uh and there is a translator. Is this the actor on the final act of his time on the stage,

or is this a serious effort to win support from the Western rally around his people, or is it something else? Well, I would rather suspect it's a combination of the two. I think to a certain extent, he's reading the writing on the wall, as some people in Washington are also starting to do, about where this is going to end up. And he's going to end up somewhere else, no question about it. But at the same time, I think he's throwing out the ball and he's kind of hoping that this appeal for him, ironically enough, standing as a champion of Western civilization, which is kind of a joke, is something that he hopes will appeal. What I've been hearing, and I would guess you also, is that popular support for this war is dwindling in the United States. Most of what you're hearing in terms of warmongering and cheering the troops on is coming out of the media and it's coming out of Congress and the White House. I think there's not a popular impulse that drives this, except for

people are hearing what their leaders and the media are saying, and they're kind of nodding their head and going on, oh yeah, well, that must be true. But of course, it's not true. Well, I agree with you, but let me go right to your wheelhouse. If it's coming out of the media, does that mean it's coming from CIA and MI6 through the media? Again, I wouldn't narrow it down to MI6 and CIA. I would say this is an all-government effort, and it's being made by State Department and Justice Department, and there are a whole lot of voices that are coming in, pronouncing how this is a vital national interest, and Russia has to be stopped, and so on and so forth. So I think you're hearing a lot of that. You're hearing a lot of that from some of the leaders in Europe that are not enthusiastic about this, but they

feel they have to follow the American lead, like the Germans, for example. I'm familiar with the five I's, E-Y-E-S, the five close allies of the West, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, I think I have it right, that regularly share intel. But can, and maybe this is a technical question, but I'm sure you can answer it, can MI6, can the British intelligence services deal directly with American media and American assets or human beings, or do they have to go through their counterparts here in the U.S.? I'm sure that the British have a number of American journalists as assets, as sources,

and that, of course, works two ways. You get information from them on what's going on at the New York Times, but you also feed them information, which is what motivates them to be in the relationship. I'm sure they have that. But at the same time, it would be a faux pas, shall we say, for the British to act independently in this kind of issue without at least briefing up the United States to a certain extent in terms of what they're doing. It depends how serious the initiative is. I think the five eyes, of course, are of the significant players in intelligence in that they are at another level than the U.S.

and its other allies in the world like the Germans. And another level there, and the British, of course, are at another level even above that. When you say another level, what do you mean? The trust, the information that's transferred is more sensitive? What does another level mean, Phil? Yeah, another level means precisely that, that the information that is ultra sensitive and that has major political implications would be shared in that very tight group, or even just between the United States and Britain. And of course, it also includes that

the United States and Britain are heavily involved in doing things that are manifestly illegal, like blowing up pipelines, like engineering situations, which they hope will escalate because they would like to see the war get more harsh. I hope you don't mind me staying on this track for a few minutes because this is your field, of course. Where are the Israelis in this hierarchy with the U.S.? Down with the Germans? Equal with the Five Eyes?

Up with the Brits? Or somewhere else? Well, you'd have to say the Israelis are somewhere else, but they're somewhere else is rather elevated. The United States has special private arrangements with Israel in terms of sharing various types of information. And this has been going on ever since the Six-Day War in 67. So, you know, basically the Israelis are a special case. Just as you might argue, the British are a special press in the hopes that the press will publish it? Out and out lies.

Oh, absolutely. That's the name of the game. If you've got a really good lie, you want to get out there. But the idea is to get it out there. And, you know, I worked with press assets when I was in Europe. And that's always the name of the game. You produce a story and the story doesn't have to be true. Very often, of course, it's not true. But the fact is you want to get it out there to shape public opinion to a certain extent and to also give you a fallback position if everything goes goes south so that's uh that's the way it works have you uh heard about this story which

has been making the rounds in europe that a russian uh hypersonic missile was two stories about russian hypersonic missiles let's do the easy one first, that the Ukrainians shot it down. Now, is this even possible that the Ukrainians could shoot down something that moves 10 times the speed of sound? Well, I don't think so, and the Pentagon doesn't think so either. The Pentagon, in terms of our own U.S. hypersonic missiles, some of which can be fired from the Patriot batteries, claims they can't be shot down. So that's what the Pentagon thinks.

And, you know, so that story would appear to be a bit bogus. Okay. The other story involving the hypersonic missile is that a Russian hypersonic missile struck an underground bunker in Ukraine, 100 meters below the earth, in which there were generals from the U.S., the U.K., and Poland, most of whom were killed. Now, this is almost fanciful. Did the Ukrainians spread this? Have you heard this? Is the intelligence community aware of this? I have not seen any confirmation of this incident from our intelligence community. This appears to be a story that was floated by the Ukrainians in an attempt to escalate the fighting and to bring in the united states and nato as direct belligerents so i suspect that's where where it

is and where it comes from now there was a ron uns at his website uh did a a-scale analysis of this story and where it comes from and how it's sourced and so on and so forth. So if anyone's interested in seeing that, but he comes to the conclusion that this was basically a Ukrainian-issued fraud. So when the Ukrainians issue a fraud like this and they want Western intel, Western military, and Western political and governmental leaders to rely on it? Don't they know that we know it's a fraud? Doesn't doing this diminish them in our eyes by substantially reducing their credibility? Well, it does to the people who care about that sort of thing. But the problem is, see, this whole Ukraine war or Russian war, however you want to put it, has developed political legs all by itself here in the United States. position is to keep supporting this without any kind of conditions publicly stated, although it sent some hints to Zelensky that are certain issues that he should cool it on. But the fact

is that this is an issue that the White House cannot separate itself from because its own prestige and everything is very much dependent on it. It's a sad, sad thing. And the same thing with the clowns in Congress who keep coming up with this. I understand there's a bill now basically granting to the White House war powers and insistence that we finish this job with the Russians. Finish it with what, as direct belligerence? Yeah, I think that's the implication.

They're, in a sense, giving war powers to the White House, which has proven utterly incompetent all the way on this issue already. This sounds like a, I hate to keep picking on it, but this sounds like a Lindsey Graham dream that the that the president could just go start a war, just go send the troops, just go kill people, Joe. Yep. And the Republicans are the biggest cheerleaders on this. Yes, yes, the Republicans are are the the biggest cheerleaders. Last week, Yevgeny Progozhin, the billionaire oligarch who runs the Wagner Group, that's the private mercenary group which the Russian military has been supplying,

was quite unhappy, to say the least, about what he says are insufficient ammunition supplies coming to him. Take a look and a listen and watch the subtitles. We lack ammunition, 70 percent! Shai Gu! Gerasimov! Where is the f***ing ammunition Посмотрите на них, сука! Жи***! Если вы даете норму боеприпасов, их в пять раз меньше. Они пришли сюда добровольцами и умирают за то, чтобы вы жировали в своих кабинетах с красным деревом. They came here as volunteers and are dying to be fattened in their offices with red wood.

Take that into account. dead bodies there, which has been blurred, so we didn't show them, bodies that purport to be Wagner Group fighters who were killed. Secondly, he calls out the defense minister and the military commander-in-chief by name, not by title or first name, just by last name. And thirdly, he appears to have taken a step back from this since this came out. But my question to you is, as an intelligent guy with contacts in the intelligence community, in the military, in the political and oligarchical and financially lead in Russia. Why this explosion on his, Beersley had been taken on his own mobile phone. Well, I think his explosion was really a cry from the heart. Essentially, his group has been taking the brunt of the fighting

for some time now, is taking most of the casualties as far as can be determined. And his demand that he is not receiving enough weaponry in real time is probably a legitimate demand. So he's probably in a position where he feels, well, you know, they need me more than I need them in a certain sense. So I'm going to shake things up. It was kind of surprising, though, however, because that's not necessarily how the system works there or anywhere else. And it was something to follow, something to see where it goes. You know, I guess I need to be educated

in this. I thought that if a Blackwater in America or Wagner in Russia shows up, they not only bring bodies, they bring equipment, they bring food, they bring medical supplies, and they bring ammunition. Am I wrong? Does the government that they support supply them with that? Do they bring their own or did they just run out of their own? Well, you know, it depends. I mean, the weapon systems, obviously, if they're sophisticated, which I assume they are in this case, are probably really a government monopoly and the government has to dole them out to the people who are doing the fighting. Small arms, no, of course, they'd be able to supply them themselves. But you're looking at a

lot of types of artillery, types of missiles, drones, a lot of stuff that the Blackwater or the Wagner Group would not have necessarily had in their own arsenals. Over the weekend, RFK Jr., the son of Robert F. Kennedy, said in public what people have been talking about for 60 years, but it's never really been articulated on national television, when he accused the CIA of being responsible for the assassination of his uncle, JFK, and his father, RFK. And the New York Times treated it seriously. I have to emphasize that. And the New York Times treated it seriously. These ideas have been around for a long time since the Douglas book on JFK and the unspeakable.

The unspeakable is that it was his own government that killed him. Wild bestseller once Oliver Stone mentioned it on Bill Maher's show. Can you enlighten us all on this theory and how intelligence community professionals like you, active duty or retired, view an allegation of this magnitude and this monstrosity? Well, you know, I've been seeing these theories for as long as you describe, since I was in high school. And basically, they're theories. They are based on two things. They're based on the fact that an intelligence agency, particularly in this case, an intelligence agency that specifically had been threatened, shall we say, by JFK and RFK, and in terms of cutting back on its prerogatives, etc., etc., had a motive. So that's a big uh a big element in this um the other thing is that intelligence agencies by the very nature and the secrecy that surrounds many of their activities have the ability

to do this so you put motive and ability together and it makes a very compelling story i i've never seen any solid proof from someone, say, who was a participant in what took place. And there were others who had motives, too. Certainly the Israelis had motives to go after JFK because he was trying to dismantle their nuclear program. So it's a question of where you're looking at and what you want to find. You'll find all kinds of things. Look at the 9-11 report, for example. There are so many holes in that report, so many things that were never looked at. And I think that's true of every major incident like the assassinations of RFK and JFK.

And it's to me an open book. I'm interested in hearing more about it. Who was in charge of the investigation of the assassination of JFK, but the director of the CIA that JFK had fired? Alan Dulles. Do I have that right? This is a little before your time, but this is history with which you must be familiar. Yeah, there were other players involved in it, too, but he was certainly a major participant and may have been in a position to direct the investigation. do CIA operatives have the mindset that they would even think of killing the President of the United States, no matter what the goal might be? Well, I'd have to answer that personally and say that nobody I ever knew in CIA would ever have countenanced anything like that. Or if they would have countenanced something like that, they they would have counted something like that they would have

never spoken openly about it but um I have never encountered anyone in the agency or in the intelligence community more broadly uh that would get involved in this kind of thing that's why I suspect there there might be a foreign hand um you know always been, of course, been suspicions about the Cubans as well as the Israelis. So, who knows? I would love to see all the documents that the government has released. I'll tell you what I told the audience and what I said with Ray McGovern. President Trump promised a number of times that he would release the JFK documents. What I'm going to tell you now is public. He called me many times during his years in the White House, often to talk about legal issues. The last phone call we had was about a

series of pardons. He wanted my opinion as to whether the person, in my view, should have been pardoned or the sentence commuted or nothing. And I gave him my opinion. That's private, and I won't recount it. But before the conversation was over, I said, Mr. President, you know, you're going to be a civilian in two weeks. Do you remember your promise, not just to me personally and privately, but to the public, that you will release the JFK assassination files. What became of that promise? He said to me, Judge, if you had seen what I saw, you wouldn't have released it either. What did you see?

Someday, when we're not on a phone call with 15 people listening, I'll tell you. What could they have shown him? JFK's brains blown open with the CIA fingerprints on it? Well, you know, there are all kinds of levels of cover-up. if basically the federal government at any level, at any agency level, was involved in either allowing the assassination to happen, now this is a distinct possibility, and then basically distorting the investigation that followed as a cover-up,

you know, anything like that is possible, and that would be quite explosive. And, I mean, thinking back in terms of the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. Now, how deep was that really ever dug into? Or the witnesses who saw a second gunman, how deeply did they dig into that? There's so many things that make you wonder, as I say, like I wonder about 9-11. Got it. Got it. Phil, thank you very much for going into these areas with us. What amazes me, and maybe it's because his name is Robert Francis Kennedy Jr.

as opposed to Robert Francis. If his last name weren't Kennedy, this might not have been the topic of discussion. What amazes me is that the New York Times, for the first time, has taken these allegations seriously, serious enough to publish them. That is what causes me to scratch my head. And I wonder if more people will take it seriously and if something will be done about it. Well, we talked long enough. Phil, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you. Well, if you liked that, my friends, and I suspect you did, like and subscribe.

More as we get it. A verdict in the Trump rape trial, I don't think today, but I do think tomorrow, Tuesday. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.