Judging Freedom - Ukraine Firepower v Russian Firepower w_Scott Ritter

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, April 12, 2023. It's about 11.05 in the morning here on the East Coast. Scott Ritter joins us today.

Scott, as always, from my wonderful viewers and from me, it's a pleasure. Thank you for joining us. Let's begin. We have a couple things to talk about today. The arrest of the Wall Street Journal reporter, or a person claiming to be a Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, by Russian security personnel with military plans in his hands. But before we get to that, I want to talk to you about the hot events of this week, which is the leak of the Pentagon briefing documents last Tuesday and then another batch leaked on Friday. What is your view about how something like that can get out into the public domain?

And do you believe that these are authentic government documents? Well, I'll start by saying I believe these are authentic government documents. I'm familiar with the classification markings on the documents, and I've examined the documents, and there's no reason to believe that the contents of these documents are by and large the original contents. There's some speculation as to some of the data may have been altered at some point in time relating to casualty figures. But these are what they appear to be, in my opinion, very highly classified, highly sensitive briefing documents prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for use by Mark Miley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. How could they make their way onto public websites? How could a human being have accomplished this?

Well, it looks like that they were folded up and smuggled out of the briefing room. I mean, these are documents that would have been extremely closely held. A limited number of these documents would have been produced, and these documents should have all been accounted for. So somebody obviously, you know, instead of destroying his copy or her copy, folded them up and carried them out and then took photographs of the documents and they found their way onto the Internet. Do you put, before we get into what they revealed, do you put credibility into the revelations contained in these documents? I think the, I always say, put it this way, first of all, having been in the intelligence business, just because the document has top secret code word on it doesn't mean that the contents are worth anything. I mean, it's still analysis. It's still intelligence information. It's an imperfect art.

And so just because the documents are classified doesn't mean that the information contained therein is accurate or sound. Now, I do believe that the information that's in these documents is information that was assembled to brief the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So, among other revelations in the document is something you talked about. I don't know, I don't remember if you use these numbers. The numbers are startling, and that is the kill ratio, seven to one. As I understand that, it would mean that the Russians kill seven Ukrainian soldiers or military forces for every one Russian that the Ukrainians kill. If that number is true, do the math. How much longer can this last? A seven to one kill ratio is an

unsustainable kill ratio, especially when the seven is to the nation with a smaller population and smaller defense base. Russia is a bigger country, has more defense production capacity. And so a seven to one kill ratio where the Russians are killing seven Ukrainians to one Russian is just an unsustainable ratio. This war can't last much longer. I mean, this is a slaughter or as one of my, one of our writers, one of our commenters, the people that email us during the show said a turkey shoot. I mean, this is just an overwhelming imbalance is it not it is i mean during world war ii and some of the large-scale fighting that took place on europe uh what you know the the victor uh you generally see a one to one point two one to one point three

kill ratio uh so the victors winning on the margins meaning that they're they're grinding them down and then in the end uh you know they they happen on the margins, meaning that they're grinding them down. And then in the end, they happen to kill a fraction more than they're being killed. And so they achieve an advantage. A seven to one advantage is just mind boggling. And remember that's done with the Russians primarily on the defensive. All right. So hold that 7 to 1 for a minute. We'll come back to it. I want to look at or want you to comment on language in these documents which said that the Ukraine air defenses are so degraded that they will be down to nothing or worth zero by the end of May. Is that credible? Extraordinarily credible. I mean, there's only a finite set of equipment available to anybody. I mean, no one, again, I go back, we've talked about this before, General Cavoli, the commander of US forces said that the scope and scale of the violence is beyond imagination, anything that NATO could have imagined. No one prepares for this kind of war except Russia.

They're the only ones who have stockpiled this equipment, etc. Ukraine wasn't preparing for this kind of war. The only reason why it's not zero now is that NATO has scoured the world looking for Soviet-era replacements for the Ukrainians, but there's nothing left in the world. There's nobody else who has this kind of a surface-to-air missile capability. So when Ukraine runs out, there's nothing to replace it. And as the document said, they're going to run out sometime in May. Okay. So now let's go back to the kill ratio. We have a seven to one kill ratio and we have in six weeks, a totally degraded Air Force defense. Now, with that in mind, tell me if the following testimony, Gary, Senator Wicker and Secretary Austin, tell me if the following testimony by the witness, Secretary Austin, under oath, is truthful.

With regard to your optimism about Ukraine having the upper hand, that is what you told me yesterday. It is. Now, Ukrainians have inflicted significant casualties on the Russians, and they have depleted their inventory of armored vehicles in a way that no one would have ever imagined. And so now we see Russia reaching for T-54s and T-55 tanks because of the level of damage that the Ukrainians have inflicted on them. And we have, in the meantime, been... And reaching for those tanks demonstrates what to you, sir? It demonstrates that their capability is waning. And we've continued to witness them be challenged with artillery munitions and other things and they're reaching out to Iran or reaching out to North Korea. I think, you know, we'll see an increase in the fighting in the spring as conditions for

maneuver improve. Do you believe there's a real chance for significant Ukrainian advancements between now and the beginning of winter i believe there's a chance and we're doing everything that we can do to ensure that they have their best opportunity to be successful senator almost and maybe it is perjurious meaning perjury meaning criminal uh because uh the man was under oath at the time he said this, and we now know what he knew. So I jumped the gun. I want your analysis, not mine. The audience has heard my analysis already.

Well, I just love the statement. We're doing everything we can to ensure a positive outcome. I mean, that's like sending me to a weight room and encouraging me to lift weights so that I can try out for the Minnesota Vikings or somebody. I mean, I'm never going to play NFL football at my age, no matter how many weights I'm going to lift. And Ukraine is never going to beat Russia on the field of battle, no matter how much wishful thinking Lloyd Austin injects into this. No, Lloyd Austin knows the truth. The problem is he's playing politics. Is he lying, straight up lying? I mean, he has a set of data that's been put before him, and that data doesn't conform with the policy objectives that he's been told to implement by the White House. And so when he sits before Congress, this isn't the first time Lloyd Austin has lied before Congress. Remember, he's testified in the past about Afghanistan. I mean, generals and former generals lie as a matter of course when they testify to Congress. We saw that

with Afghanistan for 10 years. They don't know how to tell the truth because the truth oftentimes diverges from the political objectives put forward by their political masters. Here, the Biden administration has said straight up, we can't have a Russian victory. That we have to, you know, Seymour Hersh just put out an important piece today, and it's telling in what he said. He said that the United States is preparing a major diplomatic effort to bring it into this conflict, meaning that they're getting ready to put a package on the table for Russia to consider. But the precondition is that Russia first has to lose. So the only way that we can have diplomacy with the Russians is if Russia loses. Well, newsflash, Russia isn't going to lose. Russia is going to win. It's going to be a decisive victory. So Scott, what off-ramp can, and now we may have to veer into national politics,

and you're welcome to do so. What off-ramp has Joe Biden or have Joe Biden and Tony Blinken and Lloyd Austin constructed for themselves? What credible off-ramp is there for the United States to get out of this? The off-ramp will be similar to the one we gave ourselves in Afghanistan, which is disaster, debacle. Rather than an organized withdrawal from Afghanistan, we ended up with 6,000 American service members surrounded in Kabul International Airport, frantically flying forces out with bodies falling off airplanes. And John Kirby says that's a good thing. There's nothing good about it. It was a debacle. And we're going to have a debacle regarding Ukraine. It's literally going to be, remember, we've had this conversation in the

past. You asked me how many people, how many American boots on the ground were there? Well, the interesting thing about this document is it tells you exactly what the number is. 100. State Department people, Department of Defense people, boots on the ground. There's going to be a scramble to get them out, to get any Americans who are serving out. I mean, the bottom line is the Ukrainians are going to collapse. They may try some sort of counteroffensive. It will not succeed. It will be destroyed. And when there's

nothing left to prop them up, the Russians will begin a major push. And I've said it before, and I'll say it again, this war is over by the end of summer, early fall. The documents also say that there are about 50 British special forces on the ground. The United States has not denied its special forces. It claims they're confined to the embassy in Kiev. If you think special forces are going to live in the basement of the embassy, I think that's fanciful. But the British Minister of Defense has denied that the Brits are there, which means they probably are. Do you have any idea who the person is, not by name, but by job description, who would have released these documents?

And do you have any feeling about whether more is coming? These came out in two tranches, last Tuesday and then on Good Friday. Well, I mean, the evidence suggested it was somebody who was physically present when the briefing documents were either prepared or briefed. It's somebody who extricated them from the Pentagon, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by folding them up and sticking them in their uniform, smuggling them out. So it's somebody who, I mean, frankly speaks, probably going to get caught. I don't see how they avoid getting caught here. And I know this is a little bit ad-libbing, but they should be caught. And the reason why I say that is, yes, I believe in sunlight as much as anybody, but there were important intelligence sources and methods that were compromised by this.

Those documents had classification markings that indicated that some of that information came from national technical means satellites. And if the Russians are as good as I think they are, and they're as good as I am, I can look at that document and tell you exactly where it came from, which means I can shut it down. And that means the Russians are. So this harmed national security. I know it was meant to help engender a debate, but it harmed national security. Is it likely this person is of the same ideological view of war as you and McGregor and I and everybody watching us now, which is that this is a useless, wasteful, counterproductive thing for Americans to do. In other words, this isn't a person that hates the government. This is an Edward Snowden who

wants to reveal that the government is doing something wrong. Well, I think this is somebody who watched Lloyd Austin and others give their public pronouncements and realize that the basis of those pronouncements was a lie. And therefore, they sought to publish the documents that would show that the public pronouncements of the Biden administration are formulated on a lie. And I understand where their heart's coming from. And I am sympathetic to them. Again, I just have a problem when you release information that puts intelligence sources and methods at risk, because at the end of the day, our national security, it's not about defending bad policy, it's about making sure that our intelligence community can collect the information they need to advise the president on critical issues around the world. So Admiral Kerr would publicly advise people not to read them, which of course is absurd. And then he said this, Gary.

We don't know who's responsible for this. And we don't know if they have more that they intend to post. So we're watching this and monitoring it as best we can. But the truth and the honest answer to your question is we don't know. So interesting observation. I think he fears more, but that's just me reading his face. You can read his face as well as I can, probably better. The investigative authorities here, you tell us if there's significance to this, Scott, are not DOD. It's DOJ. The FBI is investigating this. Question, does the DOD, which has its own investigative tools and assets,

some of them are as well-trained as FBI agents, does the DOD not trust its own people to investigate this? I mean, why bring the FBI into something like this if this isn't chasing a bank robber, this isn't ingratiating a terrorist and getting up to say negative stuff uh on tape like the fbi does this is a finite group of human beings who had access to this one or more of whom uh sprung a leak fbi or dod well i think if this was just about the documents that were released by um you know the

documents the original tranche of documents that this might have been left in the harvard defense uh category by broadening it to the fbi it tells me that the second tranche of documents and further tranche came from different sources um meaning that this this could be a broader conspiracy to release information. And look, John Kirby, I'm not a fan of John Kirby, but I almost felt sorry for him because that's a man who's sitting looking disaster in the eye because they have done their own risk assessment of what's been released, and they know that there's much, much more out there. This is the tip of the iceberg. This is the equivalent of the Pentagon Papers. When this information gets released,

the lies that the Biden administration have told the American people about the war in Ukraine are gonna be exposed. The American people are gonna begin to ask the same questions you've been asking here. Why are we doing this? Why are we subjected Ukrainian people to this disaster? Why is the United States pursuing this path?

There will be no ready answer. And I think that the Biden administration realizes that there's going to be some heavy accounting going forward. That's why Kirby doesn't want you to read the documents, not because he's concerned like I am about national security. He's concerned that this is a political disaster for the Biden administration. I'm happy you likened it to the Pentagon Papers. My Thursday column, which comes out late on Wednesday nights, tonight is entitled the Pentagon Papers again, in which I make the argument and tell a little bit of the history. I argue a little differently than you do. I argue that these people are heroes and courageous, particularly in light of General, excuse me,

Secretary Austin's lying. Just one correction. I'm not saying they're not heroes or patriots. I am saying they're breaking the law. I mean, that's the difference. And sometimes you have to break the law on good cause, but you have to also understand the ramifications of what you're doing. And in many cases, I believe that, for instance, if I were going to break the law the way this guy did, I would have scrubbed that document and removed stuff that gave away sources and methods of intelligence information. Right. So when Daniel Ellsberg gave 7,000 pages of documents to the New York Times and the Washington Post, which proved that LBJ and his generals had been lying, this happened in the Nixon administration,

and the Supreme Court came down in record time with the Pentagon Papers case, which said that, legitimate media can publish matters of material interest to the public, no matter how they get it. Ellsberg was prosecuted for espionage. The prosecution was aborted when, during the trial, FBI agents broke, this is an infamous part of American history, the FBI agents broke into his psychiatrist's office, Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, to get his medical records to give to the federal prosecutors to use to cross-examine him at his trial. When defense counsel told this

to the federal judge, he dismissed the indictment. The case was over. He sent the jury home, and the government was not in a position to appeal. But to your point, he was prosecuted. The government, the Nixon administration, would love to have prosecuted the New York Times and the Washington Post, love to. But the Supreme Court said, forget about it. Remember, Daniel Ellsberg famously said that someone said, aren't you afraid that you're going to go to jail? And he said, wouldn't you go to jail to stop an unjust war? So there's a man who made a decision. He's a patriot.

He's a hero. I'm not condemning the people who do that. I'm just saying that there's a downside for some of this stuff, too. I agree with you entirely. The only reason Snowden is not in jail is because he's in Russia. The government would go after him aggressively. In a couple of minutes, we're going to compare the Russian pursuit of Evan Gershkowitz with the American pursuit of Julian Assange. Before we do, I want your comments on a rather bizarre statement

made by President Zelensky. Now, he says it in his native tongue. There is a translation. The translation sounds like it's from a computer, not a human. So it's relatively brief. We're going to play it twice. But tell me what you think the chances are of the Ukrainian flag flying over Crimea. I'm not making this up. Take a listen. The world should know respect and order will return to international relations only when the ukrainian flag returns to crimea when there is freedom there just like everywhere else in ukraine the world should know respect and order will return to international relations only when the ukrainian flag returns to crimea when there is freedom there just like everywhere else in Ukraine. Now, is this for domestic consumption or is he out of his mind?

Both. I mean, it's both. I mean, you know, what Zelensky doesn't understand is, you know, 96% of the population in Crimea is pro-Russian. So when he speaks of, you know, freedom coming to Crimea with the Ukrainian flag, how can you speak of freedom when 96% of the people don't want you there, Zelensky? They're Russian and they're forever going to be part of Russia. Two, the hubris and the arrogance that says that the world revolves only around Ukraine, that every aspect of global interaction is defined by Ukraine and Ukraine alone. This man is insane. He's a threat not only to the Ukrainian people and himself, but to the entire world. And I think people should understand that, that this is a person that we long ago should have stopped supporting because he's not only

going to help bring about the end of Ukraine, but he's doing his best to bring about the end of the world. Will Putin stop when he's achieved his goals, something short of Kiev? I believe so. I believe the Russian president was quite clear on February 21st when he talked about what the Russian objectives were, and that is to bring social and economic well-being to the people of Russia. That includes Crimea and the four territories have been annexed and bring their security about by defeating the ukrainian army and liberating or denazifying the ukrainian government now if ukraine chooses to continue this conflict then there probably will be additional repercussions and they may lose more territory but right now if if the russian conditions were met russia would stop this war right now they aren't in the territorial acquisition business. Okay. Switching gears, Evan Gershkovich,

the young man from New Jersey, Wall Street Journal reporter arrested by Russian security agents last week. Let me start with a general question. Does the CIA ever engage American journalists to work for it, or do CIA agents ever masquerade as American journalists? The answer to that question is yes, and the CIA has acknowledged it. Back in 1996, when the CIA and Congress were having a hash over about what the status of some restrictions that had been imposed on the CIA after the Church Committee hearing meetings in the 1970s, the CIA had to acknowledge that on rare occasions, they said, they do have CIA officers who operate under journalistic cover, meaning that they pose as journalists,

which means the CIA reaches out to journalistic institutions like, let's say, U.S. News and World Report, as they did with Mr. Danilov, Nicholas Danilov, who was a CIA asset. Whether he was an actual trained CIA officer or whether he was a journalist working on behalf of the CIA, he was definitely cooperating. And I think that Evan Gershkowitz behalf of the cia he was definitely in the of cooperating and i think that evan magershkowitz is of the same caliber he may not be a school-trained cia officer but he is definitely a cia a journalist who is working hand in glove with the cia you wouldn't be in a katarina bird um seeking to get classified information about Russian production of caliber missiles if you were a journalist. That's what spies do. Russia's at war. An American

is attempting to get classified military information about Russian production during the war. Russia has a security service like we do here called the FBI, whose job it is to protect the national security of the state of the government. The American journalist is hundreds and hundreds of miles from where he lives and where he works. He's now arrested and will be prosecuted. Is there a material moral difference between the Russian prosecution of Evan Gershkovich and the American prosecution, torture, if you will, of Julian Assange? Julian Assange was a publisher. So he published information that he received. I think

the better question would be, is there a material difference between Evan and Bradley Manning, Chelsea Manning, the individual who released the information to Julian Assange? Julian Assange didn't collect the information. He wasn't an intelligence collection asset. He was a publisher who received information. He was 100% protected by Pentagon Papers. By the Constitution of the United States of America, he is protected by the decision of the Supreme Court. That has not stopped the Trump administration or the Biden administration from indicting him and pursuing him. And it has not stopped the Brits from tormenting him, the form of torture, in solitary confinement in a

hellhole in the worst prison owned by Great Britain. You're 100% correct. The ongoing torture, and that's what it is, torture and murder of Julian Assange is something that every American, indeed, every freedom loving person around the world should be opposed to and should be. Now, I'm not encouraging. Would I like Evan to be returned home to his family? One hundred percent. Look, we do it all the time. Spy swaps happen all the time. Is the United States ever going to admit straight up that Evan was working on behalf of the CIA? No, they can't. The CIA won't allow. But here's some clues as to why it's already happened that we've acknowledged it. There's a Marine in prison in Russia, Mr. Whelan, who was arrested and charged for espionage. And look at the way the United States government has treated him. We've been hands-off totally. There's no talk that he was unjustly arrested, et cetera. When Nicholas Danilov was arrested in 1986,

we immediately jumped out and said, he is protected. He was unjustly arrested, et cetera. Why? Because we knew he worked for the CIA. We had to get it done. We've done the same thing with Evan. Why? Because we know what the Russians know. Here's the thing. When we moved to get Nicholas Danilov released, we knew what the KGB had on Danilov. They had phone conversations, intercepted conversations. We knew it. We know what they have on Evan. We know the CIA has directed Evan. We know that the Russians know that that direction is taking place. If these things go to trial, it will be hugely embarrassing for the United States. We're going to do whatever we can to get this boy home to his family. And I hope he does come home to his family. But we should also understand, and every journalist needs to understand this, as long as the CIA uses

journalists as cover for their covert collection activity, all of you are at risk because you'll all be treated as spies. Scott Ritter, terrific, terrific analysis. Thank you very much for it. Very much appreciated. We know your time is valuable. The number of people watching and the number of people commenting are overwhelming in their belief in what you say and gratitude for you having said it.

Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having me. My dear friends, if you like all of this and want more, like and subscribe. And if you want to read one of my more powerful pieces, it's called The Pentagon Papers Again. You can get it at judgenap.com. It'll be in the Washington Times tomorrow and then in a variety of outlets as well. More as we get it. Jack Devine this afternoon. Oh, my goodness.

I wish Scott Ritter could be with me when I interrogate Jack Devine. Three o'clock Eastern. God only knows what he's going to say. Judge Paul Tano for judging freedom. Thanks. 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.