Judging Freedom - Ukraine latest w_ Ray McGovern fmr CIA analyst

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, March 13, 2023. It's about 11.05 in the morning here on the east coast of the United States. Ray McGovern joins us on the program. Ray, always a pleasure. Thanks very much for being here. When you were here last, we were talking about the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline by your former colleagues in the CIA and their colleagues in the Navy, and the extraordinary research done by a man you and I both admire, Cy Hirsch, to point out in great detail what was done. And then, of course, the government came out, not with its own version, but with some silly supposition. It's almost too ridiculous to say

with a straight face, they saw a guy in a sailboat in the Baltic Sea, and they think it might have been done by the guy in the sailboat. So before we get into what kind of mental processes officers of the CIA have when they're asked to do something which morality tells them is illegal, I would like you to address the probability that the Nord Stream pipeline was blown up in the manner that Cy Hersh has said it was, namely by Navy SEALs and CIA divers at the express instruction of the President of the United States, an ally, the United States attacking an ally, Germany, a war crime. Well, George, you're right about the war crime. And I have to say, with respect to Cy Hersh, whom I've watched for decades now, he's not infallible. I mean, even the Pope is not infallible. But he's got a 95% record, not only of being right, but of protecting his sources. Now, that's key here. Somebody with a conscience, somebody who remembered their oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, said, my God, are we trying to make not only Ukraine a basket case, but Europe as well? And they're going to find out about this. This is crazy. So this person or

persons went to Tsai and gave him chapter and verse. I mean, there is a wealth of detail in there. As Tsai puts it, there's enough there to convince them that I've got more. I just don't say more because I don't want to identify the source. Now, what's behind all this? Well, it's these united elite, extraordinary, what they call exceptional people who think they can work their will on everyone, including allies like Germany. So far, and it's been, what, 78 years since the war, so far it's worked. Will it work anymore? Well, I don't think so, because we can suppress, or the press can suppress Tsai's story here in the United States.

It is going viral in Europe. And the real question, of course, is how much did Chancellor Scholz, the chancellor, how much did he know about it? No, he stood next to Bush, next to Biden. And when Biden said, yeah, we can do it, I promise you there will be no more of a noise stream but he's standing there and then the very talented Reuters lady who's bilingual she says, Herr Kanzler, was halten Sie davon? What do you think about that? And he looked like he sure didn't want to ask like answer that question so he he went back to the default position he said they do everything together there's nothing important that we do that we don't do together now the question for the american for the german people

is the old one what did chancellor schultz know and when did he know it he might be and must be and ought to be in danger of losing his job, A, if he knew about this, B, if he didn't know about this and didn't do anything about it. Now, we know he famously met with the president alone for an hour, no translators and no assistance there two Fridays ago, and then a week ago today, the New York Times came out with that absurd story that the CIA folks had leaked to it. That's a guy in a sailboat, again, it's absurd, on the Baltic Sea. They're trying to find him. They think he might have had something to do with it. We all know you've said this.

Size sources have said this. The Danes said it. The Swedes said it. This was of such magnitude that only a government could possibly have gotten away with it. Oh, so blame it on the Russians. Right.

Putin's going to destroy his own pipeline. That's absurd. That's what John Brennan said. And of course, John Brennan's record is... Well, let's not talk about John Brennan's record. That's what they all said for the first 24 hours. Remember, Russia has taken a big shot at its own foot by killing us. Well, that's no longer.

But let me comment on why Scholz came here alone, didn't even bring his wife, right? No press. Why there was no press conference beforehand, well, we know what happened last time on February 7th last year. When the press media event took place, Biden was very careful to read from his script and didn't say another word. Why did Charles come? I said immediately, just speculation now, this is not the kind of detail that Cy Hersh has, this is McGovern's speculation. I said immediately that they needed to get their story straight. And what Schultz said to Joe Biden, he said, now, Joe, listen, you didn't tell me anything

on the 7th of May when we were together, together. I kept saying together, but you didn't tell me anything. You got that, Joe? You got that? And, okay, Biden says, all right, I think I got it. And then Biden says, we have this cover story. Our CIA, very imaginative propagandists have come up with, we think we can blame it on some Ukrainian group. What do you think?

What do you think, Olaf? Oh, let me look. Oh, okay. Let's run with it. The next day, the New York Times and the Zeit, the biggest, biggest weekly in Germany, ran with that story within hours of each other. So Schultz was here to make sure that Biden didn't tell the Germans that he told Schultz before the pipeline thing. And he was also here to approve or to get his intelligence people to approve this cockamamie story, which is really a disgrace to any intelligence officer who knows what the truth is and who has to fall back on the notion that it doesn't have to be true. It just has to grab the headlines and divert attention from what Cy Hersh said for three or four days. That's all you need. The clarifications,

if they ever come, will be on page A17. Now, when the CIA is asked to do something like this, something they know is a violation of international law, are there debates within the CIA, or do they just snap to because their boss has ordered them to do it. There are two CIAs, Judge. The analysis group that Truman set up to tell them like it is, right? He didn't want cockamamie intelligence. He wanted what he called untreated intelligence. Okay. And then there are the operatives. Now, in my experience, 27 years, very, very seldom did the analysts get a chop on the operations. If they told the analysts that they're going to mine Nicaraguan harbors, the analysts would have said, what the hell? You're going to get brought before the world court. What the hell is that going to do?

So they don't tell the analysts. And in this case, it could be that one analyst or somebody at the very top said, well, they told me about this. This is crazy. So I'm going to tell Cy Hirsch. In other words, short story is the operatives go by that clause in the National Security Act of 1947 that set up the CIA that says, and I quote, the president shall perform, I'm sorry, the director of central intelligence shall perform such other functions and duties as the president shall from time to time direct, period. Including killing innocent people and invading an ally. Hey, it's against, it's against, well, we do what the president says. So you have a fellow like William Burns, who knows which end is up, right? And he, as Cy Hirsch relates, he's told to do this. His guys have said, oh, we can do it. The Navy has said,

the Norwegians are helping, yeah, we can do it. And then he says, Bill Burr, the president said, do it. Do it. And that's the way it works. The only head of intelligence, and I worked directly under him, his name was Bill Colby. He used to give us these covert action plans and what do you guys think? What do you guys think? What do you analysts think? Chances were we'd say, well, so you're going to replace the lieutenant colonels in Portugal that threw out the fascists? Whose idea is that?

Well, it was Kissinger's idea. We told the president, this is crazy. Don't even think. Don't even think these superannuated generals have any chance of bringing Portugal back into the ranks of fascism. So that was unique in my experience. And I served under how many? Nine directors of central intelligence. It's just the way the cleavage works. The analysts don't really get a chance to complain about this. I don't know who went to Hirsch, but he certainly had,

he or she had his or her head screwed on, right? Because this is an act of war, and it's going to, the ramifications are not going to stop anytime soon. You have recently been involved in producing a documentary, I think, to tell the world about Julian Assange, a person who, in your opinion and mine, is a hero for free speech, but who's being persecuted, prosecuted, tortured by the British government at the request of the American government in an effort to bring him to the United States, where the Department of Justice wants to prosecute him for behavior utterly and totally protected under the First Amendment and under the Pentagon Papers case. Tell us a little bit about the documentary. Well, there are several documentaries that I've played a part in. The most operative thing I can report is that John Shipton, Julian Assange's father, and his brother, Gabriel, were here in Raleigh last night, and they showed the documentary Ithaca. It's a very poignant documentary. It focuses in on Julian's father

and how we had all the, what we used to call the theological virtues, right? Faith, hope, and mostly love, which is the greatest of these, right? Well, you're really showing the Fordham in you. I love it. You know, I didn't think of it at the time, but I had memorized a good portion of the Aeneid, you know, by Virgil. Right. A whole story about Pius Aeneas, Pius. No, Pius as it is faithful, faithful Aeneas to his father, okay, Anchises. Well, this is the Aeneid in reverse. I got to tell you, I was forced to memorize the opening lines of the Aeneid as well. The opening six or eight lines of the Aeneid in here since I was 15 years old and second year Latin in high school. But anyway, go ahead.

Whoa, man. Bravo. Well, the whole story is about how Aeneas, he carries his father through hell, you know, and he's just, Pius means faithful. And that's exactly what Julian Assange's father is being, traveling around the world in places like Raleigh, North Carolina, to show this unceremoniously dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy. He looked disheveled because they wouldn't give him a razor, right? And for a year and a half after that, I let my beard grow until my wife said, you know, this is it. It's the beard or me, just to identify myself with the way Julian looks.

Does he have a chance of avoiding extradition or a chance of becoming a free person again? If we looked at the United States, I say no, because the deep state, that is the FBI, the CIA, NSA are running things. I do not exaggerate. They're running things. OK, not exaggerate. They're running things, okay? Now, Australia is a different case. There's a new government in there, relatively new. They're meeting, actually today, Biden is meeting with their albinist, their president or prime minister now. So there's a chance. But albinist says nice things, as most people do. He needs to stand up at his two hind feet and say, look, this is my citizen.

Chivas Romanus sum, right? Right, right. I am a Roman citizen. St. Paul's saying, look, don't fool around with me. I'm a Roman citizen. They send him to Rome instead of torturing him. Right. That's what Albanese has to do. Look, he's an Australian citizen.

If you take him to the United States, it's not going to be a cakewalk. I mean, you still have a First Amendment. I mean, you'll have a hanging judge, but it'll all come out what happens. So maybe the best thing for you to do, Mr. Biden, is to bring him back or let him come back to Australia. That would be a decent thing to do. Now, the relationship between Albanese and Biden is such that Biden will easily say, well, no, we don't want to do that. And then the question is, will Albanese like Olaf Scholz? Okay.

And what did Julian Assange do? Julian Assange exposed murder and war crimes by the federal government of the United States in jail for the rest of his life, and the Brits are holding him in solitary confinement, destroying his mental state. Yeah, he's under psychological torture. You know, one of the things that happened last night, Stella Morris, of course, Julian's wife, plays a major role in this documentary, and she's talking with Julian on the phone. Is that her name, Stella Morris, Star of the Sea? Well, that's her. I'll say that's her pseudonym, okay?

Okay. Yeah, you got it, too, Stella Morris. I don't know anybody else that saw that. They spelled it a little different. Anyhow, he's on the phone with Sella and he and she says yeah that's right that's right there was a demonstration in front of the prison by Orientals humming and singing and chanting and Julian says yeah without a song you don't have a movement you need music for a movement. And I felt very

affirmed on that because I think I'm the only person that sang a song before the Security Council of the United Nations. And so they asked me to sing a song again last night. So I sang We Shall Overcome. And that seemed to resonate because I think we need to have hope. I hope that Julian can be free. Ray McGovern, always a pleasure. Please come back and join us again, my dear friend. Thank you very much. Thank you. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.